


Blindsided

by obliviongrace



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2012!Phan, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Angst, Phandom Big Bang 2017, but the general fact of it happening is there, meaning that a certain video leak sets up a significant amount of the character arcs, the video itself is never explicitly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:43:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obliviongrace/pseuds/obliviongrace
Summary: Before cactus plushies and lava lamps there were white walls and broken blinds. After moving to London, Dan and Phil’s lives explode with the stress of a million subscribers and trying to get a radio show and invaded privacy. Phil is just trying to keep the world out, but Dan is worried they might shut each other out along the way.





	1. July

**Author's Note:**

> When I joined the phandom, I never thought I would write a piece of fanfiction this long, and I certainly never thought that when I did it would be about 2012. Yet here we are - and I couldn't be happier or more proud that the story is finished. I wanted to write the fictional version of it that I wanted to read but could never find, where the a lot of the tension lies on the fact that - in my head - dip and pip would've been in a relationship for almost 3 years, and sometimes it can be difficult to navigate how long two people are going to be together or want to be together or what that means. 
> 
> Thank you so much to my wonderful beta, @killingmeitsso2yearsago, who did a fantastic job of fact-checking and reminding me that this story was taking place in the UK. Thank you also to my artist, @infidany, for all your creative energy. It was such a wonderful experience to have a team for this. Thank you also to many people on idb who encouraged me to take part in PBB even though I had never written fic for the phandom before. I am so happy that I listened to you and took the leap. 
> 
> My grandma died while I was writing this story, and she was always so supportive of my writing - be it poetry, non-fiction, fanfiction, whatever. This will be the first writing project of mine that she will never read, so I think of her as I post this. 
> 
> ALSO: If you know your canon timeline well you will know that deppy moved to London in July 2012 and the leak that garnered the most attention happened in October 2012. I changed this fact for the sake of this story, and made the major leak happen in June. 
> 
> The title is taken (quite literally) from Blindsided by Bon Iver. I highly suggest listening to the song while reading the fic.
> 
> I also suggest listening to [written away (to distrust)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe42uCCFnw8), the beautiful song written by my artist for this fic.
> 
> Lastly, this fic was nominated for best characterization and best reality in the 2017 Phanfic Awards. Wth, thank you!
> 
> ~feel free to come say hi to me on tumblr, I am [oblivionsgrace](https://oblivionsgrace.tumblr.com/) :)~

Dan was on the train to London when his mum called. Phil was seated to his right, his body pressed into the plastic seat back as he snored, his head slowly lolling onto Dan’s shoulder (“Don’t let me sleep on your shoulder,” he had said earlier. “If I do, just push me off or something”). Dan knew it was his mum as soon as his cellphone burst into the chorus of a Front Bottoms song, knew she would be the only one calling him at his god awful hour. And he knew what it was about too. He knew that his brother had seen a post on Tumblr about the video and told his mum about it, causing her to call him in a fit of hysteria (“You never tell me anything!” she’d exclaimed. “How am I supposed to know how you’re doing or help you if you never tell me anything?” And Dan hadn’t known how to respond because, yes, he was a shit son, but he honestly had nothing to say). That was also the case now, and so he debated whether to answer it, his fingers twitching. He eventually decided to keep his promise to Phil instead, and tossed up the shoulder that Phil had settled onto, pushing his head up into the air.

“Mmmph,” Phil said in protest.

“You fell asleep on my shoulder,” Dan whispered. “Wake up.” It was then that his phone reached the end of its third repeat of the chorus, and then fell silent.

“Who was calling?” Phil asked as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“My mum.”

“Ah,” Phil said. His voice came out all groggy and sore, probably because they had been up packing up the rest of their stuff until 3AM and then gotten up for a 7AM train. “And you didn’t answer?” It was an obvious fact, but Dan knew that this was his way of gently prodding the topic, of seeing where Dan was since their last conversation, in which Dan had struggled to say more than “I can’t believe this is happening.”

(“Well, it’s happening. We need to have a plan,” Phil had said softly, although his hands were gripping the side of the couch in a way that let Dan know he did not feel calm.

“A _plan_? You say that like this is fucking National Treasure. This is a private video that is now in the hands of millions, and they are going to take whatever they want from it, and we have no control over that..”

“We have control over how we’re going to respond, Dan. Of how we’re going to ignore it. Of how we’re going to make people forget about this whole thing.”

Dan didn’t think he or Phil had the power to make the internet forget about anything, but Phil always believed in his own power, and Dan didn’t want to be the one to tell him that this time all of his big ideas and planning might be futile. So he settled on whining, “I hate this, Phil.”

“I hate it too,” Phil had said, his voice barely above a whisper, only he didn’t specify what it was about the situation he hated. Dan hadn’t either, he realized later, and that’s what kept him up at night. What did Phil hate? The infringement of privacy? The fact that he’d ever made the video? The fact that they’d gotten themselves into this situation in the first place?)

“I’ll call her back later,” Dan said. “Once we’re at the apartment.”

Phil’s eyes crinkled, but he said no more. Instead, he looked down at the boxes stuffed into the space between the backs of the seats in front of them and their feet. These were the last of their stuff, and when they left Dan had felt acutely aware that he’d never see the inside of the apartment again, and then felt very sad. He wasn’t sure why, when he knew they had big things waiting for them in London. (Those were Phil’s words. “Big things,” he’d stressed a week ago, when Dan had told him he thought the move was a terrible idea. He’d already dropped out of uni, he thought later. He might as well jump off the goddamn cliff.)

Phil was dozing off again, his weight slumping into Dan’s side, and Dan took this opportunity to tickle his side. “Stay awake, you spork. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

Phil hummed in agreement. “Unpacking. And then we have a meeting with the BBC at 5.” Dan stayed silent, hoping that if he didn’t speak Phil wouldn’t know about the butterflies looping in his stomach. “It’s so _early_ ,” Phil whined a moment later, and he buried his face into Dan’s shoulder. This was much more conspicuous than accidental sleeping, and so on instinct Dan glanced over at the people across from them. He didn’t understand Phil sometimes, not wanting to sleep on his shoulder and then burying his face in it. A question bloomed in his mouth, but he swallowed it down, not quite knowing how to ask it. Phil groaned, his voice reverberating through Dan’s skin. “When was the last time you were up this early?”

“When my mum gave birth to me.”

Phil laughed loudly, too loud for this dawn train ride, but Dan decided it was worth it. Then he leaned across Dan’s chest and closed the blinds. Dan was glad he did. The sun was blinding.

\- - -

Their new flat had so many stairs that Dan could barely get to their actual door without wheezing.

“We need to work out,” Phil gasped. “This is ridiculous.”

“It’s harder because we’re carrying boxes,” Dan grunted. “Also, this _is_ our workout.” Phil rolled his eyes and huffed as he bounced up the box he was holding so he could readjust his grip. “Be careful,” Dan warned. “That box has all our Xbox equipment in it. I’m trusting you with my life.”

“Don’t worry, I would die too. Now open the door for me?”

Dan wrestled with the key, balancing a box between his right hand and hip, and then pushed the door open. The flat was as they had left it yesterday: covered in boxes and devoid of personality. But still, Dan was overcome with a feeling of appreciation for it. This flat was _theirs_ . It was shitty, full of stairs, in the center of town, and just what they could afford, but it was _theirs_.

“Keep moving,” Phil panted, pushing into Dan’s box with his own. “I’m gonna die.”

Dan stumbled forward, walking over to where the bedrooms were. They had already decided who would get what, and Dan was happy that his had lots of windows. Before going through his own door, he glanced over at Phil’s, and saw that there was still nothing in there but a mattress and the bed frame that the previous guy had left behind. They would sleep there tonight, and suddenly Dan wanted nothing more than this day to be over so that he could curl up with Phil. That was quickly becoming his favorite part of every day, when he could pull the covers over their heads and finally they could be in their own little world. He used to always feel like that when he was with Phil, like the world began and ended with them. But now there was a sort of looming presence surrounding them, one of subscribers and finances and jobs, and Dan missed feeling like the whole world was his private space.

“Ow!” Phil screamed, jolting Dan out of his own head. He sat his box down right inside his room and then ran down the hall.

“Phil? Where are you?”

“The lounge. Ow, I fell,” Phil whined, although still just as loud. Dan entered the lounge to find Phil flat on his back, the box of Xbox equipment sat on his chest, rotated so that the equipment was now spilling out the top and onto Phil’s face.

“Well I can see that, you buffoon.” Dan leaned down and removed a controller that was carefully balancing on Phil’s nose. He then bopped his nose with his finger and smiled. “I told you to be careful.”

“I know,” Phil sighed. “This floor is slippery.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yeah. I think I might lie here for a moment, though.”

Dan laughed. He picked up the box and re-stuffed all of the equipment into it. Then he moved so that he was sitting cross-legged by Phil’s head, so that he was still able to look down and see Phil’s whole face.

“I know you’re nervous about us getting the job and affording this place and all that.”

“Yeah,” Dan said quietly. He was lacing his fingers through Phil’s hair, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk about this or not.

“I know you sometimes put on a brave face about it, but I can see how scared you are. But you shouldn’t be. If you could drop out of uni you can do this. You’re a hard worker.”

“It’s not that I don’t think we can do it, it’s that I don’t know if the BBC will think we can do it.”

“We’re going to get the job, Dan,” Phil said, staring up at him from the floor. “At least, that’s what I want to believe. Because I believe in us.”

Again, _us_ , Dan thought. Which _us_? But instead of asking this, he smiled down at Phil and said, “I believe in us too.”

\- - -

That evening, after their BBC meeting, they trudged back up the stairs, slightly leaning on each other as they conquered each step. As they bumped sides, Dan saw Phil smile, and he knew this was their way of letting each other know they were grateful to have made it to the end of another day together. Dan felt heavy from the professional atmosphere of the meeting. He was very good at putting forward a good attitude, he knew, but it required so much effort that afterwards he felt like a big deflated beach ball.

Once they got inside, they shed their coats and shoes in silence and then made their way through the boxes and into Phil’s room. The mattress was crappy, and Dan knew he’d sink down enough that he’d be able to feel the broken wooden slats on the frame beneath it. But still, he couldn’t wait to finally curl up with Phil, and so he eagerly slipped under the blanket. It was an old fuzzy blanket that they had brought from Manchester, and currently the one one that had. Dan pressed a bit of the fabric to his nose and inhaled deeply. Some of the smell of their old apartment was still there.  

Phil raised his eyebrows at him, and then began taking off his shirt.

“Oh,” Dan laughed, “guess I should take my clothes off.”

“I mean, if you want.”

“I’m so tired from today, I think my brain’s stopped working.”

“You were good today. At the meeting,” he whispered as he reached out and gently cupped Dan’s shoulders, pulling him into his chest.

“Thanks,” Dan whispered back. He burrowed his face into Phil’s shoulder and breathed in the smell of his aftershave and shampoo. They whispered to each other at this time of night, always whispered, because this was part of how they created their own little world. This sort of separation had been necessary for them, recently, and their different kinds of behaviors had been sectioned off into different areas, rarely overlapping with each other. Phil didn’t bring the sheets up over their heads, because it was hot and they were pressed up against each other, but it had the same effect. Dan felt like he was breathing for the first time all day. “I was so nervous,” he whisper-giggled, the real-world-ness of what they’d done today suddenly hitting him.

“I know,” Phil laughed. “But as soon as we were in there I would’ve never been able to tell. It’s like you flipped a switch. It was amazing.”

“Yeah. I mean, I think we are good at this.”

“We are.”

“So hopefully they will agree.”

Dan felt Phil nod his head. “Exactly.” Then Phil wrapped his hands around Dan’s wrists and gently pulled him back until their faces were aligned. Dan tensed up for a moment, and then hated himself for it. Sometimes it was hard now for him to get in his mind in the right place for this. Phil wrapped his hand around to the back of Dan’s head and caressed his hair, as if he understood. Then he leaned in and kissed Dan, their lips touching gently, and the pressure was both barely there and fluttering all down Dan’s body. As they kissed, Phil started to push his body into Dan’s as he tightened his grip, and the light in Dan’s brain began to dim. Soon enough he was letting out little sighs into Phil’s mouth. Then–

“You never called your mum back,” Phil whispered into his mouth. Dan groaned and pushed back from Phil’s chest, ready to see his wicked grin. But Phil’s face was completely serious.

“Really? Bringing up my mum just then?”

“Oops, sorry. But it just came to me. I never saw you call her back.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I didn’t.”

“You should.”

Dan blinked into the darkness. “And say _what_?”

“I don’t know. But you’ve got to tell her something, Dan. She can’t help you if you don’t speak to her.”

Dan closed his eyes. This was something he’d been thinking more and more about lately, and he was sure Phil had an inkling of it. (Phil had learned to read between the lines of his thoughtful periods, asking him things like “I see you are reading your law books again,” and “Why don’t you take a walk?” “You could call your mum” was probably just a continuation of that.) Dan hated to admit it, but he had been thinking recently that maybe a lot of the silent suffering he’d blamed his parents for was partly because they wouldn’t have understood or had time for his issues, but also partly because he never gave them a chance. And, maybe, he needed to give them a chance now, especially because he was feeling more and more like he couldn’t lean on Phil for everything. This was an under-developed thought that made his stomach twist into knots, and was both something he wanted to share with Phil and a conversation he wanted to avoid.

And _this_ was also a conversation he wanted to avoid. He wanted to go back to the kissing. “Want to…work out?” Dan whispered, cocking his eyebrow as he slipped a hand down to Phil’s hip. Phil chuckled.

“Nice one. Real smooth.” Phil’s eyes twinkled. He seemed to be willing to let the topic go, and for that Dan was thankful.

“Thank you, I try.” Dan’s hand was still on Phil’s hip, and now he flexed his fingers against his skin. He pulled Phil’s face back towards his, and placed kisses onto his forehead in the spaces between his fringe. He continue drawing circles on his hip, moving closer and closer to his crotch, until he felt Phil bring up a hand and place it over his own.

Phil’s grip was hard, and Dan heard him sigh a little bit. Dan leaned back to look at his face. There were distinct lines now on Phil’s forehead, but the room was too dark for Dan to make out the details of his expression. “No?” Dan asked.

“Not tonight, if that’s okay?” Phil said, bopping his nose against Dan’s. “I’d rather just cuddle, I think. Like you said, today was really tiring.”

“Yeah. Of course,” he said, trying not to let disappointment sneak into his voice. Dan shifted so that his back was now facing Phil’s front. He felt Phil curl his arms around him and pull him close. It was fine, really. Cuddling with Phil was just as great, especially this way, with Phil draped over his back in a way that allowed him to feel smaller and safe. But he’d had this image of the stereotypical couple moving into a new place together and having great sex that night, spurred on by the excitement of a new life together. Some part of him felt fearful at the idea of them not fulfilling his fantasy.

Still, Phil was now burrowing his nose into the space between Dan’s neck and shoulder, and Dan couldn’t help but melt into his warmth. His last thoughts before falling asleep were: _I should talk to mum about the video, I should talk to Phil about the video, I should talk to Phil about everything._

\- - -

It wasn’t that they hadn’t talked about it, but that it was hard for Dan to determine what they were actually talking about. Sometimes it was their career. Sometimes it was their lives. Sometimes it was their privacy. Sometimes it was _them,_ but that was still a non-determinate, a phrase with no designated meaning, and Dan worried that the meaning they had once given to it was leaking out of them and into the cracks in the floorboards.

\- - -

Dan woke up at 2PM to the loud sound of a bus whirring into action. He’d actually woken up many times throughout the morning to various traffic sounds, but always managed to fall back asleep. This time he really woke up, partially due to the fact that Phil was poking him in the side.

“What?” Dan groaned. “What?” Phil gave him a particularly hard poke in the side and then gave him the widest smile possible.

“We should go to Ikea today.”

“Are you _serious_?” Dan said, rolling over and pressing his face into the pillow. He could feel his bones aching from being squished onto this mattress, which was too short for either him or Phil to completely stretch out. “We got up at dawn yesterday, I slept like crap last night, and now you’re waking me up because you want to go to Ikea?”

“C’mon, c’mon,” Phil grinned, now on his knees and shaking Dan. His eyes were shining from beneath his floppy fringe, and as Dan glared at him in annoyance he felt his breath catch. “It’ll be fun.”

Dan knew Phil was just trying to distract him from the fact that they weren’t going to hear back from the BBC for a couple days. At their meeting they had turned in a demo for what their next Christmas special could look like. Getting another Christmas special was the first step to getting a full-time gig, Dan knew, and he hated that even after the last one they had to continue to prove themselves.  

“Okay, _fine_ ,” Dan moaned, and then he picked up his pillow and slapped it over the top of his head. “But give me five more minutes.”

“Okay, I’m going to shower,” Phil almost squealed, and then he bounced out of the room. Dan wondered if that had been Phil’s way of asking him to join him. Once upon a time he probably would’ve assumed so, unafraid at appearing eager and enthusiastic, but recently he was second guessing himself a lot. (About a week ago, during a bout of insecurity, Dan had lied on his bed in Manchester and done the math to figure out exactly how long they’d been together. It was more than two and a half years, coming up on three. Dan thought it was odd how, after so much time together, Dan could go right back to feeling like an insecure teenager who had no fucking clue what he was doing.)

It was probably safer to just appear cool and collected, Dan supposed. He pressed the pillow deeper into the back of his head, trying to block out all the sunlight so that he could think better. They really needed to buy some working blinds.

An hour later, both of them were dressed and digging through their backpacks for their Oyster cards.

(It had taken an hour because Dan had insisted on straightening the edges of his hair that had curled from yesterday’s box-induced sweat. “Don’t bother,” Phil had said, reaching up to twist his fingers into the spiraling hairs. “It looks cute like this. Your hair curls around your eyes and cheeks. It outlines your face.” Phil brought his hands down to either side of Dan’s face and rubbed patterns on his blushy spots.

“No, Phil,” Dan said, jerking back from his touch, “It looks gross when it’s like that. There’s no style.”

Phil stepped back and opened his mouth, probably to say something else sweet, but then he closed it again. He was giving up, because Dan was clearly not in the mood, and while Phil’s love of his curls was normally an inside joke between them, it had landed left of center this time. Dan tried to shake the feeling that most of their jokes were flopping like that nowadays.)

“We just used them yesterday,” muttered Phil as he removed a miniature Pikachu plushie and an abandoned keychain from his backpack. “We can’t have lost them already.”

“They probably just got buried under our trash from dinner,” Dan said, pulling out the leftover plastic wrappers from the burgers that they’d purchased on the way back from their meeting. (It had been a guilty purchase, one that had made Dan’s stomach curl inwards with the knowledge that they didn’t have enough money for it, that they were doing it simply because they were stressed and it was easier to think about a momentary cure for said stress then how the stress was going to continue into the next day and the next day and the next. “We deserve it,” Phil had said softly as he’d fished out the money. Then he’d almost placed a hand on Dan’s back before swerving it around to his front and settling for poking the blushy spot on his cheek. “Don’t fret.”)

“Found mine,” Phil said just as Dan had stuffed the trash into the trash can. “And yours. I must have taken it from you after we were done using it.” He handed Dan’s card to him, which had a Special Olympics design.

“I can take care of my own card,” Dan muttered.

Phil gave him a funny smile and then said, “I know.”

It took them one hour to take the tube to Ikea, and Phil spent most of the trip playing Whale Trail on his phone. Once they arrived at their stop, Dan had to almost forcibly remove the phone from Phil’s hand to make him pay attention, as well as pull him out of the way of the crowd of people getting on at the last minute.

“You’re a walking danger to yourself,” Dan muttered, head close to Phil’s ear.

Phil let out a chuckle that came from deep in the back of his throat, and Dan could feel his breathe permeate in the air around them. “Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ve got you.” He nudged Dan in the side and smiled, and Dan smiled back. But then he remembered that they were in public, and so he pulled his head back until it was at least a foot away from Phil’s.

“What are you thinking we should buy?” Dan asked, wanting a quick change of subject.

“Well, we need to get your mattress.”

“Ah, right,” Dan said. He’d enjoyed that sleeping next to Phil had been a necessary thing the past couple days. When they first moved in together they had often slept in the same bed, still reveling in the novelty and freedom of living on their own and having unlimited access to each other. But as time went on and life got more serious Dan became aware that always sleeping in the same bed did not allow them a separation that Phil might crave. Or he might crave. He wasn’t completely sure anymore. When their popularity began to rise and interest in their relationship hit a new high, he often found himself sleeping in his own room on what felt like some sort of principle.

He cleared his throat; this wasn’t the time. “I need bed sheets, then. And a duvet of some sort.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Okay, so, a bed frame, mattress, sheets, duvets–”

“And maybe a dresser?” Phil interjected.

“And a dresser. Sounds good. Like the best suburban moms, we’ve got a list.”

Phil laughed. It was one of his full body laughs that made Dan’s whole body tingle. “Shut up,” Phil snorted, and then he gently bumped his hip into Dan’s side.

They stayed like this, quietly laughing and hip bumping, until they’d reached Ikea’s entrance. Phil practically floated up the escalator, his long legs spinning outwards as he took the steps three at a time.

Dan laughed. “Phil you look _ridiculous_ . Phil, _please_.” This only made Phil purposefully push his legs out farther to the side as he leaped, making him look like some sort of deranged ostrich. Dan was practically crying, his sides burned, and he felt that combination of adoration and embarrassment he often felt around Phil. “Stop, stop,” he wheezed, running up the stairs to meet Phil, and then without thinking he wrapped his arms around Phil’s neck in order to pull him off the escalator. He stumbled off of the steps and onto the landing, Phil’s body folding forwards with him, and for a moment their faces were so close that it would take very little for them to be kissing.

Then Phil jolted away. For a moment his face was blank. Blankness was always worse than anger. Then Phil’s smile returned, and he laughed, “Did you like my baby giraffe impression?”

“Yeah, you were hilarious,” Dan snorted. Then he walked away from Phil and towards the front doors, making sure to add a fond “Idiot” back towards Phil before disappearing through them.

But as soon as he did he found himself increasing in speed, not even entirely sure where he was going. His brain was buzzing from having been so close to Phil in a public space. They hadn’t been like that in a while, and it felt like instead of knowing how to naturally be friendly in public they were either socially awkward or flirting. Dan dug his fingers through his hair and then looked around for a sign, remembering he needed to get bedsheets. When he finally found his way to the appropriate aisle, Phil was already there, a packaged duvet stuffed under his elbow. He turned and saw Dan as he approached.

“What have you got there?” Dan asked, gesturing to the duvet. It was checkered green and blue, a similar color scheme to the one Phil had had in Manchester.

“I like the colors,” Phil said, “and there’s a matching one for you.” He pointed his elbow at the on the shelf in front of him, which was checkered black and white.

Dan snorted, “It’s depressing, like me. Thanks, Phil,” and he made his voice sound super irritated, though he reached for the duvet anyways.

After he also had it securely tucked under his arm, he realized he could feel Phil staring at him. He turned his head, his eyebrows raised high. “What, mate? Do I have something in my teeth?”

“You ran away,” Phil said. His voice was low and gravelly, the equivalent of a blank face, and Dan cringed.

“I’m just not sure we can afford to be so obvious.”

Phil almost snorted. “Dan, I know. Trust me, _I_ know. But how were we being obvious back there?”

“We were being sweet. And coupley. You know.”

Phil’s face twisted. “No, I–” and then he sighed, his whole body dropping downwards. “I don’t want to start to overthink every little action that I do with you. Because I will start to overthink every single one, and then I won’t be able to do anything around you without feeling scared, or stiff, or watched.”

“I already do that, Phil. I am already at that point.”

Phil’s eyes widened, and Dan couldn’t tell if it was out of surprise or fear. “You are?”

“Yeah.”

Phil gnawed at his lip slightly, his fingers running nervously over the duvet’s plastic cover. “I’m just not sure that overthinking is the answer. I’m just gonna freeze up on you one day–”

“Let’s talk about this later, okay?” Dan said. He said it because he knew that’s what Phil wanted to say but would never say, because Phil worked around conflicts through fidgets and starts followed by long-winded explanations two hours later. He bumped his hip into Phil’s side, trying to find the rhythm they were in before. A two-hip-bumping-boys-with-matching-duvets rhythm. A friends but also maybe work partners but also mostly boyfriends rhythm.

It was later, when they were eating in the café, that it happened. They had finally settled back into their normal back-and-forth when choosing on a new mattress for Dan (“You’re getting older,” Phil had said with a smile. “Now is the time to start thinking about taking care of your back.” Dan had twisted his face up, trying to look angry even though he knew his smile was breaking through, and said “Fuck off, mate. _You’re_ the old man). They’d gone with the cheapest one, which was also the least comfortable, but Dan still thought it was better than the one he’d had at university. Then they’d picked out the cheapest bed frame and a wardrobe for Phil.

(“Phil, that one is like a hundred pounds more expensive,” Dan said after Phil had pointed to his favorite.

“Yeah, but it has a full length mirror,” Phil said, and he had barely gotten the full sentence out before Dan burst into laughter.

“Ah yes, I’d forgotten that my little emo boy needs the perfect layout for doing his hair.”

Phil had rolled his eyes. “I’m not little,” he practically squealed, his voice all breathy and high. And you’re one to talk about the hair. You touch yours every two seconds.” Dan’s eyes had shone back at him and, just to let Phil be right, he reached up and adjusted his fringe. “I know. I’m just being a dick. We will buy you your wardrobe.”)

They had just settled down at a table, their duvets and sheets in bags by their feet and their hands filling their mouths with food so that he didn’t have time to discuss how expensive the bill had been, when a girl approached them.

“You’re Dan and Phil, yeah?” she asked. Both Dan and Phil looked up at her at the same time, their mouths full of meatball and a little bit of gravy dripping down Phil’s chin. He quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped it away.

“Yes, we are,” Phil said as he hastily swallowed. His voice had jumped about an octave, and he was already standing with his arms out for a hug. He was always so kind, Dan thought, so unbearably kind. “How are you?” Phil asked as the girl burrowed into him.

“I’m good, I can’t believe you two are here!”

“Well, we are.” Phil pulled back and smiled again. “What’s your name?”

“Haley,” the girl said. Dan wondered how old Haley was. She looked to be fourteen, maybe fifteen. He wondered what kind of things she’d read online, if she’d watched the video, if she was thinking about any of those things right now. Then he inwardly blanched at the thought, and told his brain to shut down. He looked at her, zeroed in on her excitement to see them, to see _him_ , tried focusing on this crazy weird moment that he’d spent so many months dreaming of.

“And what brings you here today, Haley? Are you shopping with your parents?”

“Yes!” she said. “Shopping for furniture for my room. And what about you guys? Little boyfriend outing?”

Phil, who had resumed eating when Dan took over the conversation, almost choked on his bite of meatball. He looked down at the ground, and looked, and looked, and Dan could already tell he was not going to be able to finish their previous conversation anytime soon. Dan closed his eyes too, because suddenly he had gone goddamn blind.

\- - -

The problem was that Dan spent so much time trying to return them to normalcy. That didn’t leave room for precarious conversations full of questions like _Hey, are we doing okay?_ and _What did you mean when you said you didn’t know how to process this?_ and _You know how we said once that we were forever? Are we still that even though we haven’t talked about it in a while?_

After finishing their meatballs in silence, they had called a taxi to take them home, since they were not about to haul everything back by hand. Dan was unsure they would even be able to carry everything, never mind walk the distance from the store to the train station. (“My back still hurts,” Phil had whined after they’d put their trays away and retrieved the rest of their purchases. This was the only thing he said to Dan after the fan incident, and he whispered it, the words sort of sad and twisted by his mouth. Dan had given him a sympathetic look, but not said anything in return.)

The drive back was silent. Which, their taxi rides often were, but this silence was different. Normally their silence was pulsing with an undercurrent of conversation (“I feel like we are always speaking to each other,” Phil had said once to Dan. “Even when we aren’t talking. I will think something in my head and find myself assuming that you’ve heard it, and then when I mention it to you later you will know exactly what I’m talking about. And it won’t be until later that I realize I never told you the original thing. It’s like we have our own braille system. Oh wait, that’s the wrong thing….”) But in the taxi on the way back, Dan’s mattress and Phil’s dresser in the trunk, their duvets held to their chests, Dan couldn’t help feel like Phil was purposefully not thinking anything. He himself was trying to think about things, trying to figure out what to say to break this awkward silence, trying to figure out if he should comfort Phil or comfort himself, but he kept getting distracted by how the patches of green and blue and black were sprawled out over their laps and mixing together on the seat.

It was after they had carried everything up to the flat, huffing and puffing as they took three trips up and down the flights of stairs, that Dan thought of something to say. “How are we ever going to fill all this space?” he asked, looking over at Phil. Phil was staring at the long rectangular box containing his new wardrobe, as if it would automatically assemble itself if he stared hard enough. Eventually, though, he looked back at Dan, and Dan tried to communicate his real question with his eyes. _I’m sorry about what happened at Ikea. People suck. Will we be okay?_

“You say that now,” Phil said eventually, “but we’ll accumulate stuff over time.” Dan shivered, because those words – _over time_ – indicated a sort of future. In order to distract himself, he jumped into one of the empty boxes and then popped out of it like a Jack-in-the-Box. Phil laughed and said, “Will you always be this weird?” and Dan wondered if what he was really asking was _How much time?_

(He had asked that, once, in Manchester. They had been sitting on the couch, shoulders touching, comfortably sharing each other’s warmth as they played separate games on their laptops, when Phil had asked, “How much time do you think we’ll spend living together?”

“I want to live with you for a long time,” Dan had said, head ducked down in the way it always was when he was saying something important. “I can’t imagine not living with you at this moment.”

“Okay. Me too.”

“Good,” Dan has responded and then snuggled his head down into Phil’s shoulder and kissed his neck.)

Dan stuck his tongue out in response and then ducked back down into the box, wrapping his arms around his legs and trying to make himself as small as possible. “I will be like this for as long as you want me to be,” he said. He had hoped it would come off all casually meaningful, but perhaps the shake in his voice had given him away, because Phil sat down across from his box on the floor.

“Dan,” he said softly. “You’re worried about what happened.” It wasn’t a question. Whenever Phil spoke, he wanted to sound like he knew what he was doing.

“Yeah,” Dan said, his face still mostly hidden by the top of the box. Then he realized that Phil might think this means _he_ ’s freaking out about what happened, which he is, but he also isn’t. He cleared his throat and sat back on his heels to look at Phil, praying that this would sound articulate. “I am worried about how you’re going to react.”

Phil made a face. “About how _I’m_ going to react?”

“Yeah.”

Dan held his breathe as Phil stared back at him, his face seemingly going through a whole spectrum of emotions. He eventually settled on a little smile. “It’s fine.”

“It’s fine,” Dan repeated slowly.

“I mean, things like that are going to happen. We can’t prevent that. So we keep a straight face and change the subject. And then we move on.”

“Cool,” Dan said slowly, aware that Phil’s words sounded less like a real suggestion and more like a band-aid that they could slap over everything. How could they move on while this was still always happening? “So, moving on.” Phil nodded and stood up, reaching out and pulling Dan up with him. For a moment his balance swayed and he leaned into Phil. It was a moment similar to when Phil was climbing up the escalator at Ikea, only now they were alone. Still, Dan pulled back. “How long do you think we’ll have to keep doing this?” he asked quietly.

“I feel like it’s just starting. So, a while, probably. And for as long as we want to, I guess.” Again, he had given almost every answer. Dan stared. He stepped out of the cardboard box. “We should put this wardrobe together,” Phil said to him as he walked out of the lounge and down the hall. “I was thinking we could film it.”

\- - -

So, they’d talked about it. The answer to all of their questions – How long will we have to address this video? How long do we keep us a secret? How much time will we spend living together? – was however long they wanted to. But still. There were a lot of empty walls. It could take a long time to fill them, Dan thought. And then what happens once they’re all full?

\- - -

The next evening, they went to Bryony and Wirrow’s place. They hadn’t originally planned to, but the apartment had felt stuffy and empty, and Dan had remembered that he needed to do a liveshow and their internet wasn’t connected yet. Plus, it was suddenly weird, the two of them alone together. They had waited around in tense silence for a couple hours, answering emails and staring at their phones, before Phil decided that instead of waiting they should go ahead and film the teaser for the next season of the Super Amazing Project. Dan was aware that the video probably wouldn’t go up until September, which was over a month away, but he agreed anyways. Filming was a relief, because it allowed them to tune out the whole world and just focus on each other.

(Phil had failed to properly tie a tie when preparing for the news segment and it had made Dan laugh so hard that he began to just choke on air. “Stop laughing,” Phil had insisted, his voice all high and squeaky. “I don’t know why I can’t do it.” And Dan had found himself reaching out and touching Phil’s face before saying, “You’re just special sometimes, that’s all. Let me do it.”)

He wasn’t afraid of being with Phil in front of the camera because he knew that they had the power to edit together what they wanted and delete what was for their eyes only. But when not on camera, a heavy weight settled on their shoulders, and Dan found himself moving stiffly and Phil’s face lighting up less. It was as if some part of the protective rhythm they’d settled into in Manchester had broken, and now they were trying to dance together while listening to different songs. So Dan was relieved when Bryony texted him and Phil asking why on earth she had not seen their stinky faces yet, and even more relieved when Phil suggested they go to see her and Wirrow.  

When they arrived, Bryony fake-pinched their cheeks and told them she could tell they’d moved because they now looked like grown men. They all messed around in the kitchen in an attempt to make dinner. Wirrow and Phil spent the whole time talking about the newest Stephen King novel, which left him and Bryony with the bulk of the work. As they stood next to each other at the counter, their elbows bumping together as Dan tried to slice potatoes with his left hand as Bryony shredded cheese with her right, Dan found himself marveling at the fact that this was his life. He’d spent years admiring Bryony as a YouTuber, and even though she didn’t do it any more he still had a bit of that idolization in his brain.  

“You okay, mate?” Bryony asked him. “You’re lagging.” She pointed at Dan’s left hand, which had been holding a knife in the mid-air without moving for the past minute.

“Yeah, sorry,” Dan said as he set the knife down and brought his hands up to rub his eyes. “It’s been a crazy transition. I think I’ve done more cardio and heavy lifting in the past four days than in the past four years.”

“Moving to London can be a bitch,” she said. “How are you two doing?” she waved her finger discretely between him and Phil. Perhaps Dan’s face revealed his trepidation at that question, because she quickly added, “Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t be asking. Does it break all our rules for me to ask? I don’t know. But you both looked stressed today when you arrived, so I asked.”

“We’re definitely stressed.”

“Phil told me about what happened.” Dan froze at that. _Phil_ had _told_ her. While it wasn’t a surprise he’d talked to Bryony, she seemed to be suggesting that he’d shared details, which was more than what they’d discussed.  

Bryony was still talking. “If people are being too crazy or it’s all too much, then feel free to leave that hellsite behind. I wouldn’t judge you.”

“Oh god, no, we need YouTube. We have, like, no money. And we’re trying to nail down this BBC job.”

“Yeah, Phil said you should be hearing back soon about another Christmas special. That’s awesome! That should give you some relief, because that can be something totally separate from YouTube.”

“No, it’s stressful as fuck. I mean, what if they search our names on Tumblr?”

Bryony waved her hand. “Another hellsite. Although, I’m still using that one, so I can’t talk.” Then she sighed, as if she was about to get serious, and added, “Does Phil know you’re stressing out about this? Or are you two just stressing out in parallel?”

“He knows.” Bryony scrunched her nose at him, and he tried to give her his coolest smile in response.

Two hours later, after they had eaten and Dan had done his liveshow, the four of them were lying about on Bryony and Willow’s carpet.

“We should paint our nails,” Bryony said with the sort of tone that suggested it was a joke. They all laughed along until she straightened out her face and say, “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

Dan sat it out, and Bryony made a little face at him. But he remembered the moment from his liveshow when someone had asked him if he’d ever paint his nails, and the way his stomach had twisted up at the thought of it. Phil accepted her offer, and Dan wondered how he could be so unassuming and bold at the same time. Bryony chose a bright yellow, which Phil commented looks like the sun on steroids, and Dan found himself saying that it matched Phil’s personality. He hadn’t realized he’d said it until Phil smiled up at him in response, and their eyes locked for a moment.

(When Phil had first caught wind of the video leak, he walked into Dan’s room and they’d locked eyes. Phil had stood there for a long time, silent, before saying anything. “This is bad?” Dan had said, like a question because he wanted there to be a chance that it wasn’t as bad as he thought, but also not like a question because just the look in Phil’s eyes was enough to make him feel scared.

“This is bad. We need to delete everything suspicious we ever put online. Which, I think, is a lot.”

“We’re such idiots,” Dan had mumbled as he fumbled for his laptop, his hands shaking slightly as he started typing in his password.

“No, we’re not. We couldn’t have known,” Phil had said, and Dan had wondered if he’d meant that, or if he even believed it was true, or if it was just the easiest thing to say at that moment, much easier than _I messed up_ or _We messed up_ or _I’m sorry._ )

Phil’s eyes were dragged away from Dan’s when Bryony touched the brush to his nail. Phil let out a little squeal at the feeling, and they all fell into delirious laughter. As Bryony focused on painting the first nail, Phil stared in equal awe and discomfort, saying things like “How do girls do this?” and “Am I supposed to feel a tingling sensation?” and “I’m colorful. Like a girl, so colorful.” In the end, Phil only let Bryony paint two of his nails, because he found the chill of the paint unsettling. Then they just messed around until Bryony yawned and said she had to get up for actual work tomorrow, so they needed to either get sleepy or get out.

Wirrow sent them home with two of his paintings to hang on their walls. Phil took the brightly colorful one, and Dan chose a painting of foxes that he planned to put in his bedroom. As they waited outside for their taxi, Dan stared down at the painting gripped in his hands, feeling as though some sort of quota was starting to be filled.

\- - -

When they got back home it was long past midnight, but Dan wasn’t at all tired. He decided to try out the old piano that had come with the flat, and which Dan had quickly moved into his room. It was brown and stained and a bit ugly, but also looked as though it contained a whole life and past within it, and Dan liked that.

Phil must have heard him playing and wandered in, because suddenly Dan felt his weight settle beside him on the bench. Phil placed his hand on the keyboard and tried to mimic Dan’s fingering. It was then that Dan noticed the nail polish again, shining back at him from Phil’s middle and forefingers. He reached out and gently cradled the two fingers in his.

“You should clean that off,” he said. “Before you forget.” He kinked his eyebrow, trying to communicate to Phil both that he wanted to have sex tonight and didn’t want to be fingered by a polished nail.

Phil’s face twisted. “Bryony didn’t give me anything to remove it with.”

“Well we can look up online how to do it. I’m sure there is some mixture we could make.”

“Nah, I’ll just leave it,” Phil shrugged, dropping both hands to his sides. Dan’s face fell, because Phil wasn’t getting it, and he didn’t know why. He knew that he should probably just tell Phil what he wanted, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to communicate with him this way, wanted to prove to himself that they could understand each other’s little quirks and hints. So, not knowing what else to do, Dan curled his fingers around Phil’s shoulders and pulled him forward. He tilted his head, slid one hand up to the back of Phil’s neck, and then they were kissing. The angle was a bit awkward, with both of their bodies oriented towards the piano, but it was sweet and warm nonetheless. It was also a bit tentative, Dan realized. They both remembered the girl at Ikea.

But still, Phil was pushing into Dan, opening his mouth so that a little bit of his tongue flicked out to Dan’s mouth, and running his hands up Dan’s sides. He pushed back into Phil, and soon they were swaying with the weight of each other. “Maybe we should move to your bed,” Phil muttered after Dan had to clutch onto his shirt for balance.

“Mhm,” Dan mumbled into his mouth. “We can test out the new mattress.” His voice was soft, remembering when he had asked Phil to join him last night and he’d said no. (“After all the back and forth on the train I feel like I need to stretch out for a night,” Phil had said. Dan said, “Okay,” and wondered why he was suddenly so aware of their sleeping patterns, when they had been sleeping next to each other on and off for years, and there had always been an ebb and flow. Later, after he’d star-fished out across his new mattress and felt his bones sigh in relief, he realized Phil had probably made the right call.)

“Ooo,” Phil cooed, getting up from the piano bench and grabbing both of Dan’s hands. “Mr. Howell, I have just purchased this new mattress and now I need your assistance in testing its firmness.”

Dan made a sound between a groan and a scream and dropped his head onto Phil’s chest. “Is it wrong that turns me on? It could be a whole Swedish boy scenario.”

“I don’t judge your fantasies, you don’t judge mine.” Phil winked as he wrapped his arms around Dan and moved them backwards towards his bed. He had placed it in the far corner of the room, which at this moment he regretted greatly. When the back of Phil’s legs met the edge of the bedframe, Dan pushed forward a little so that he toppled down on top of him.

“Oof,” Phil grunted, and then to Dan’s great disappointment he scuttled out from under his weight and over to his side of the bed. Dan dragged himself over to where he was and then plopped down next to him, their faces a few inches apart and their chests heaving.

“Hey,” Phil whispered.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Phil said again, only this time a little deeper, and he reached his hand out to play with Dan’s fringe.

Dan looked up at Phil’s hand as it moved. In-between blurred close-ups of his dirty hair, Dan could catch specs of Phil’s yellow nail polish reflecting the city lights shining through his windows. He looked back at Phil, whose smile had sagged a bit. “What’s up?”

“You said you were worried about how I’d react.” Dan blinked, not sure if he was talking about the video or the Ikea incident, or maybe both. “I always stumble at first, you know that. I get scared and either say nothing or say the first thing that comes out of my mouth, which often sounds stupid.”

“You never sound stupid, Phil,” Dan muttered, but Phil kept talking.

“You should know that I am asked about us all the time, and I see it in the chat of YouNow and YouTube, and I know that I am good at ignoring it and keeping a straight face, but I feel it on the inside.” Phil removed his hand from Dan’s to place it over his own chest. “I feel the fear here. I feel like there’s some big Godzilla-like monster out there that’s watching us all the time and could reach down at any moment and pull the rug out from under us, like some reverse Deus Ex Machina. Or take you away from me. Every time I get asked about you in a public place I feel like I’m at risk of losing you.”

Dan was breathing quickly, overwhelmed by Phil’s confession. “That’s not how it works,” he murmured, his hands reaching up to grab Phil’s. “It’s up to us if we lose each other or not.”

Phil nodded slowly. “You’re right.” His next words came quickly, his voice trembling as he held tightly onto Dan’s hand. “You know that the issue for me, often, with any kind of relationship is attachment. I had thought I had grown to be almost immune to that with you. But now, every time someone talks about us in that way, I’m always calculating how much pain it will eventually cause me to feel. Anyways, I think I should go back to my bed to sleep. Still feeling a bit claustrophobic all the time. I think it’s the constant sounds of traffic from outside.”

“Oh – okay. I mean, or you could stay here and we could cuddle. We can listen to an old Muse album and share the headphones while we fall asleep.” Dan smiled brightly at Phil while he said it, hoping it would jog good memories, dozens of nights of him comforting Dan after a bad day at uni or a botched test or after he’d dropped out. Endless days of fear that were hushed by Phil.

“I think I just need to be in my bed tonight,” Phil said, and Dan could tell he wasn’t happy about it. “I’m sorry.”

Dan got up and kissed his forehead. “That’s okay.”

“You going to go to sleep?”

“Nah, I think I’ll play some Guild Wars. It’s been awhile since I let myself escape into it.”

He checked his phone, and he had two texts from Bryony and a missed call from his mum. His thumb hovered over the call back button. But then a loud siren exploded into the night, causing him to jolt backwards and almost drop his phone. A bad omen, Dan thought. He threw his phone onto the bed.

\- - -

Dan woke up at 10 AM to his phone vibrating loudly against the cardboard box that was currently serving as his bedside table. He groaned and rolled over to pick it up.

“Hello?”

The voice that came into his ear was perky and clear. “I’m surprised you’re awake.”

Dan groaned again, before he could stop himself. He had forgotten to check who was calling first. “Hi, Mum. Just woke up.”

“I see. How are you?”

He blinked, trying to get the fuzzy sunlight-drowned scene in front of his eyes to come into focus. “I’m good. Tired.”

His mum didn’t say anything, but he could hear her click her tongue in a way she did when acknowledging a difficult situation. The difficult situation being his asshole behavior of avoiding her calls. “Is the moving all done?” she asked.

Dan’s vision cleared just as his mum had asked the question, and from his spot on the bed he scanned over the room in front of him. A broken piano, a pile of dirty clothes, cardboard boxes. “Most of our stuff is unpacked. It’s been a slow process getting furniture. We just got a second bed yesterday.” Dan froze up as soon as he said it, hearing the suggested train of thought in his own words.

If his mum noticed it, she didn’t call out the implication, and instead laughed. “I’m trying to imagine you buying furniture. How did that go?”

“Fine, mum. Phil and I are capable. We managed in Manchester, and now it’s just all the same responsibilities with some added challenges.”

“Ah, yes,” his mum responded, “There will be always be added challenges,” and Dan could feel it coming, he could one hundred percent sense what his mum was about to say. “Speaking of, and I don’t mean to pry here, I know you are an adult. But I wanted to check in and see how you are doing after all the ruckus about you two online, as I didn’t really get to ask during our last conversation.” (After she had exclaimed, “How am I supposed to know how you’re doing or help you if you never tell me anything?” Dan had remained silent, because he didn’t have anything to say. And then he had felt his breathing grow heavy, felt some tears develop in the corners of his eyes at the sheer embarrassment that any of this was happening. And so he’d hung up the phone, not wanting for his mum to hear him cry.) “I don’t really understand what it’s all about,” his mum continued, “but your brother said it has something to do with the two of you dating.”

Dan snapped his eyes shut. It was much too early for this. He was almost grateful that his mum hadn’t said Phil’s name. “No one was supposed to see that video,” he got out, and he hated how his voice came out low and cracked.

“Well, clearly. I wanted to say I’m sorry about it getting out. That must have been difficult for you and Phil. It must still be difficult.”

“Yes, it is difficult. It’s…” Then he shut his eyes closed very tightly and tried to fight off the queasiness that was coming from having this conversation without cereal. “Aren’t you,” he faltered, and then started again. “Aren’t you wondering if me and Phil are together?”

“Well, no. I mean, yes, of course, I’d love to hear it from you, if you’d like to tell me. But I am not wondering because I sort of guessed it a while ago.”

“You’ve known?”

“Yes.” She laughed, almost dryly, and then added, “it’s not like you two were discreet about it. You were so desperate to see him, and he was always calling you.”

Dan opened his mouth, ready to insist that wasn’t true, but then he didn’t. He suddenly wondered if Phil would be okay with them having this conversation right now, what he would have done if Phil had been sleeping next to him when he’d picked up the phone. “I’m sorry I lied.”

His mom sighed. “I mean, we always suspected. It was clear you were set on him. I remember when we tried to stop you from visiting him and you and your father got in that big fight. Intervening just stopped seeming worth it.”

“Weren’t you mad”

“I mean, of course. He could have been a crazy man.”

“But he wasn’t.”

“Yes, but he wasn’t. Thank god.” She sighed, and then was silent for a few moments in which Dan could hear her clicking her tongue again. “My boy, out in London,” she muttered. “You’ve really gotten swept up in all this, haven’t you?”

Dan brought his hand up to brush away the fringe that was drifting into his eyes as he thought about that. “Yeah, I guess.” As his hand met his hair he realized that it was still straight because he had forgotten to shower. His mind had been so engulfed by everything that he hadn’t even _thought_ about showering. “I mean, it is crazy. We don’t even know if we’ll get the radio show yet. It’s a risk.”

His mum didn’t say anything to that, and he wondered if it was because she disapproved. It was strange how he both didn’t want to hear her opinion and craved it. “I listened to your demo. You were both very funny,” she said.

“Thanks, mum.”

“I know you’re busy, and it is true that I don’t understand your job or what you are doing with YouTube very well. But apparently, there are a lot of people out there who want to know a lot about you. So, if you want help dealing with those problems, don’t be afraid to ask.” She paused then like she was expecting a response, but Dan didn’t know what to say. There were so many things he needed to ask about, it seemed, and yet he seemed to royally suck at all of the specifics of asking. “And I hope you know that it’s fine you like boys.”

“Yes. Yes, I know.” It was strange how that reassurance made Dan’s stomach twist. “That isn’t part of the problem,” he muttered. He’d been staring at the piano for the past couple minutes, but it was just then that his attention caught up with what he was looking at. Him and Phil had sat there last night and kissed, and it had been warm and nice, but nothing else. It had almost felt like an offering to keep each other happy. And they hadn’t done anything else, he realized. They hadn’t even tried. They hadn’t had sex since Manchester.

At that, his mind froze and did a round-about, remembering he was on the phone with his mum. “Then what is the problem?” she asked.

He brought his hand up to his hair again. He was so goddamn bad at asking. “I’m not sure.”

\- - -

Dan couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment his love for Phil had changed. He remembered worshipping him, watching him with a sort of obsessiveness that now made his cheeks burn red when he thought about it, thought about how Phil had once been something other than a person to him. He remembered revering him, staring at him from across a table at Starbucks, laughing as Phil saucily licked off his caramel macchiato mustache, blushing when he told Dan he looked cute. He remembered liking him, his heart rate rising rapidly whenever he walked into the room, his pulse jumping at the sudden realization that Phil liked him back. He remembered craving him, digging his fingertips into Phil’s hips and watching in fascination as they bruised. He remembered loving him softly, giggling when he did something annoying and coming to find solace in the silent atmosphere created by his being. But he couldn’t remember falling in love with him, and that drove him crazy.

He wondered if Phil could remember. He wondered if Phil had ever thought about it. Or, maybe, Phil never thought about it anymore. They had so much to think about, after all.

(“I don’t remember,” Phil had answered when Dan worked up the courage to ask him one night, back in Manchester. Then he’d looked at Dan with concern, as if he couldn’t understand why he was asking the question, as if he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that Dan had become fearful.)

\- - -

It wasn’t until two days later that they heard from the BBC. They were in the kitchen, Dan showing off the Vietnamese stir fry he’d made to Phil, when Phil’s cellphone rang. Phil had recently changed his ringtone to a duck quacking over and over again, and so when it rang out Dan almost jumped out of his skin. “Jesus, Phil. I thought a duck had flown through the fucking window or something.”

Phil was standing with his phone in his hand, his eyes wide. “Shut up,” he said. “It’s the BBC.”

Dan’s heart, which had already faltered due to the false duck alarm, almost stopped.

“Hello,” Phil said into the phone, his professional yet eager voice in place. Dan had always admired that, how Phil could perfectly craft his voice and face to show that he was smart and capable but also bursting with energy. He thought deeply about his choices without over-thinking them, a balance that Dan envied. (“I want you to do a radio show with me,” Phil had said to Dan after he’d first been contacted by the BBC.

“What?” Dan had faltered. He was overcome by a moment of jealousy that Phil had been contacted in the first place, and then hated himself for it. Phil worked so hard, had spent years on YouTube that he had not, and yet he was looking at Dan with eager eyes and asking him to join him in his success. “But they asked you.”

“They did. And I’m excited about it. But I think it would be even better with you. We bounce off of each other well. You can easily jump in with a quip when I freeze up, and I can interrupt with some soft pun when you get too impassioned.”

Dan laughed, Phil’s smile getting to him. His face was beaming; he had both thought this through and was jumping on an opportunity before it passed them by. And he wanted Dan.

“Listen,” Dan stuttered as he tried to get his head around the idea. “Phil, I’m definitely going to get ahead of myself and curse on the radio or something.”

“You will. And we’ll have to deal with that later. But it’s worth it. We’re the perfect comedic duo.” He reached up and tapped his own head and then tapped Dan’s, a gently bop that left his whole forehead tingling. “C’mon. I’ll even let them call us ‘Dan and Phil.’ What do you say?”

Dan laughed. This was crazy. “Okay,” he said, and Phil leaned over to kiss him. Their lips collided in joy and nervousness and hazy love. Phil stepped closer and grabbed onto Dan’s shirt. They kissed again.)

Dan stared into his cup of coffee, his lips tingling a bit at the memory, as Phil spoke. “Yes, we understand. The demo could work as a blueprint for any weekday show, but we’d also love to do another Christmas special.” He watched as the dark heady liquid and soft wisps of cream mixed together. He could hear Phil thumping his fingers against the kitchen counter as he listened to what the other person was saying. “Yes, we’d love to come in tomorrow. Okay. Dan and I will be there.” Dan’s head popped up at the sound of his name, and he turned to look at Phil, who had just ended the call and was now staring as his screen. “The Christmas special is officially on the table. They want us to come in tomorrow at 2PM to discuss it.”

“Oh no, we’ll have to wake up early.”

Phil laughed, and that seemed to unfreeze Dan from his position. He set his phone back down on the counter and began getting out plates for their lunch. Dan started sorting out the portions, and he noticed that he couldn’t stop smiling. They might get the job. They might make more money.

“Dan,” Phil said suddenly.

Dan almost dropped the ladel he was holding. “What?”

“I really need you to know…. Ducks can’t fly.”

“Shut up!” Dan squealed. He bopped Phil on the head with the stir-fry coated ladel, causing Phil to shriek and bop him on the head in response.

That night, Phil knocked on Dan’s door at 2 A.M. They had already retreated into their separate spaces for what Dan thought was the night, but then Phil walked into his room and sat down at the foot of his bed. “Hey,” he said. He was staring at Dan, looking flushed and a little bit breathless.

Dan moved his laptop from his lap and scooted closer to Phil. “What’s up?”

“I just realized we haven’t had sex in, like, a week.”

“Were you wanking when you realized that?”

“Shut up.” Phil pushed Dan in the arm, and in retaliation Dan grabbed onto his elbow and pulled him on top of him. “I’ve missed you,” Phil whispered as he curled into Dan’s lap and began kissing down his face.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think about it for that long.”

“You seemed really worried about everything.”

Phil’s face twisted. “I wasn’t _that_ worried.”

Dan thought about what Bryony had said. “I was.”

Phil smiled a little bit. “I know. I mean, I could tell. You’ve been insisting on sleeping in here every night and been pacing back and forth for hours.”

“ _Insisting_ ? Phil I was just trying to give you some space as well. To, you know, process everything.” _Everything_.

“It’s manageable, I think.” Dan rolled his eyes, because of course Phil would say that, Phil was the great manager of life, never could he admit that it might be overwhelming. Except, he had, on this very bed, a few day ago.

“I’m not sure we’ve been communicating so well since we moved.”

“What are you talking about? We’ve been doing all the same things we always do. Give each other space when we need, spend time chilling together without talking, then talking when we’re ready.”

“Right. But recently I’ve felt like you’re saying words and I realize I don’t really know what you’re actually saying. Does that make sense?”

“I guess. Like sometimes when I go back home my mum will speak with a really intense northern accent, and it will take me a couple minutes to figure out what she’s saying.”

Dan rolled his eyes and said, “Sure, like that,” and then his eyes closed because Phil pushed him back against the bed and pressed his mouth onto Dan’s. Phil parted his lips and breathed into Dan’s mouth, all soft and warm, and Dan brought his hand to the back of Phil’s head and tried to focus on this moment only, on the fact that he was here with Phil and no one else, that Phil was gently kissing him, and that they were about to have sex. That last thought made Dan’s brain light up. “Phil,” he gasped, pushing at his chest. Phil pulled back and scrunched his nose at him. “I don’t want to have sex just to forget about our worries. Like, I want to have sex with you, fucking believe me I do, but I don’t want that to be our solution.”

“It’s not like that,” Phil said. “We’re not having sex to forget our problems, we’re having sex because we’re two people in a relationship who have sex now and then but who haven’t in a while because we’ve been really busy. The sex isn’t because we’re stressed, the sex is because we’re us.” Phil leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to Dan’s cheek, his lips taking their time at suctioning in on his skin and then releasing with a little pop. Then he tucked his nose up next to Dan’s and brought one hand down to Dan’s hip. “Don’t overthink everything,” he whispered.  

“It’s not just the job stress, Phil,” Dan whispered back, even though he was also now grabbing a little wildly at Phil’s hips. “It’s the people calling us boyfriends. It’s the people pushing it in our faces. Like you said before, it can feel like we’re going to lose track of each other amongst all of it.” Dan’s head was fuzzy, his body distracted by the contact with Phil that he’d so desperately wanted for days. And he knew Phil was listening to him, he did, but he hated feeling like he was suddenly alone in this fear, when he could still hear Phil whispering _I’m always calculating how much pain it will eventually cause me to feel_. Where was that fear now? Why was it that they could never manage to both be afraid at the same time?

Phil leaned back a bit so that his bottom half was still resting on Dan but his top half was supported by his shoulders. “Listen. It’s going to be okay. Because there’s you and me,” Phil said, his hand motioning between himself and Dan. “And then there’s everything that’s out there.” He threw his hand out to the side, towards Dan’s growing Guild Wars 2 shrine, and dramatically popped his eyebrows. Dan couldn’t help but giggle, his dramatics capturing more of his attention than his words. “All we have to do is keep them separate.” Then Phil collapsed back into Dan and wrapped his arms around him. His kissed Dan’s neck then, soft and chase, and the resulting shiver in Dan’s spine prevented him from forming a rational thought for the rest of the night. Phil whispered the words over and over again into Dan’s skin, peppering them in between kisses. “Us and the world. We’ll keep them separate.”

\- - -

But Dan wasn’t so sure there was a clear division. Phil had whispered those words to him in-between kisses, as they were wrapped up in the black and white checkered duvet on Dan’s bed, and then he never said them again. There was him and Phil, and then there was everything that was out there, but they were required to interact with everything out there by definition of being people living real lives. Phil’s suggestion seemed to suggest some sort of barrier, some sort of repression, in which the two could never touch. But the next morning, when Dan went to pour himself a bowl of cereal, Phil walked into the kitchen a few minutes later with bleary eyes and leftover sex glow and kissed Dan on the cheek. “You look adorable,” he whispered, and Dan responded by bumping his hip into Phil’s and saying, “You’re a sap.” Then Phil reached down and laced his fingers into Dan’s, his eyes burning bright. For a second, all Dan could focus on was Phil’s warmth on his skin, and how they were never going to be able to touch like that once they went into the BBC building.

(“Sometimes I still wish I could touch you all the time,” Phil had said to him that morning after their 11AM alarm went off. Phil had set it to the sound of a dog barking, and so when it first activated the sound had simply infiltrated Dan’s dreams with sweet corgis and big hounds. Phil had to shake him awake, kissing the spots on his collarbones where he’d left marks the night before, whispering sweet things. “Sometimes I worry that I don’t appreciate you enough when we’re inside and together, because then later I’ll be outside or we’ll be apart and I’ll think ‘Why wasn’t I touching Dan while I could?’”

And Dan had giggled, because he thought that sounded a little crazy and a lot sweet, and he was also relieved that he wasn’t the only one. He wanted to touch Phil a lot, the three years hadn’t dulled that, only his conscious had, and the way that his chest twisted up all hard and stuffy when someone asked him about his sexuality or joked about him and Phil. But he always wanted to touch Phil, so he pulled him back down on top of him and, that morning, did.)

But when they left for their meeting, Dan reinstated a multiple foot gap between them. He kept it in place as they walked to the underground, as they stood in the crowded tube, as they walked to the BBC building, as they rode the elevator, as they shook hands with Nick Grimshaw. He thought about it as they went over their list of proposed segments and discussed possible show names. He was still thinking about it when Phil joked that it should be called “The Phil and Dan Show” and gave Dan a cheeky little wink. He both wanted to touch Phil in that moment and wanted nothing less than to touch Phil, because he was terrified of the consequences. If they were Dan and Phil in one of their bedrooms it was okay, but if they were Dan and Phil outside it wasn’t, but if they were Dan and Phil in one of their bedrooms during a liveshow it was also not okay, and if they were Dan and Phil outside but hiding it was.

Phil wanted to keep his relationship with Dan and their place in the world separate. But _which_ relationship, Dan wondered. There were so many thems, so many Dan and Phils running around London. How could someone tell the difference?


	2. August

They spend the next week slowly putting things up on the walls. First it was their superhero prints and Muse poster, and then Phil brought out a box of knick-knacks he’d collected over the years.

“No,” Dan said when Phil pulled out a lamp shaped like a pig, “Absolutely not.”

“Come on,” Phil pouted. “We could have it mounted on the wall.” He held the lamp up to the wall to demonstrate, placing it a couple inches away from the top of their fireplace. Dan was excited that they had one, but also scared he was going to burn the house down. “If you get to have Kanye posters, then I can have a flying pig lamp.”

“I’m going to put the Kanye prints in my room, Phil. This is our shared space.” Phil pouted a little harder, but Dan was determined to stay strong on that one. He’d already caved on a Tetris lamp and a collection of dolls. The truth was that he actually liked all of those things, and Phil knew he did too, but he let Dan get away with the ‘I’m too cool to share’ shtick he felt determined to keep up now and then. But Dan really did hate that lamp.

“Okay,” Phil sighed eventually. “I concede on this one. I guess it will just have to go in my room.” Then Phil put the pig lamp back in its box and moved to a new one. Phil was in a good mood today, humming and dancing around the room as they unpacked, stopping to kiss Dan on the cheek every now and then, which wasn’t unusual for them but also made him nervous. He found that all of their old behavior was making him nervous here. He felt exposed, like all of London was watching them through the windows.

“On a scale from 1 to Taylor Swift, how good is my singing?” Phil asked, interrupting Dan’s brooding. He had been singing an old 80’s song that was covered on last night’s episode of Glee.

“72,” Dan said. “So pretty close to Taylor Swift. I’m sure that if you picked the right song it could bump you over the threshold.”

Phil slumped his weight into one hip and crossed his arms, standing in fake deliberation until he felt Dan had waited long enough. Then he stood up straight and coughed out a “mmm baby.”

Dan immediately squawked, that sort of breathy half-sick half-sex noise making his body react in multiple ways. “Phil,” he laughed, “I can’t bear it.”

“What? That was good.”

“It was,” he admitted after he’d recovered. “One of your best. But I can’t hear it without imagining us having sex. And then I get super distracted, so my automatic defense is to cringe.”

Phil nodded and then looked down, his hand lingering on the frame that he had been dusting. Dan wondered if it made him sad that that was how he reacted now, even in their lounge. Maybe he could ask. Maybe…. “I’ve been thinking about what happened at Ikea.”

Phil’s head snapped back up and he resumed dusting. In one second he had gone from frozen to suddenly looking busy. “Oh? Has it happened again?”

“No.” Dan hesitated. “Well, people have been mentioning it more in my liveshows. They’re always spamming ‘phan’ in the chat, but now they’re always asking me about being gay and stuff.”

“I know,” Phil said, and that caught him off guard.

“You _know_?”

“Yes, people have been mentioning your responses to me in my twitter mentions. You’re not the only one who interacts with your audience.”

Dan froze in the middle of reaching into another box, hearing the sudden frustration blooming into Phil’s voice. He stalled by deciding in what order their DVD boxsets should be sorted, and then said, “We haven’t talked about how we want to respond to those kinds of things.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“Do we need to talk about it? I mean, they are our separate channels, so we can have separate responses.”

“That’s true,” Phil said dryly, and his face was stoic, and Dan hated nothing more than when his face was stoic, because it made him feel like he was on a broken raft in the middle of the ocean and had no way how to get to the nearest piece of land. “Are you mad about the way I respond?”

Phil had joined in with Dan’s DVD sorting and was now studying the episode listing for Buffy season 2. “Not mad, exactly. I mean, I get it. But I think it’d be better to not even acknowledge them, Dan.”

Dan huffed out a breath and dropped the DVD he was holding back into the box, suddenly feeling very tired. “That’s not fair. I’m doing what you want me to do, okay? Me answering those questions, that’s me shutting out the world.”

“No, that’s you inviting in the world by bringing more attention to the issue.”

“So how would you deal with all the prying questions?”

“I don’t want to respond to them at all. That’s how I feel most comfortable dealing with it.”

“So, silence.”

“Yes. Where do you think little Superman should go?”

They spent the rest of the day goofing around and switching between animated conversation and comfortable silence. As always. And also not as always, because Dan couldn’t shake the heavy feeling in his stomach. He had felt a bit ungrounded since his gap year, and had hated how that anxiety manifested itself in his body. (“You get a certain look on your face before you’re about to have a break down,” Phil had said to him once. They had been eating pancakes at the breakfast bar, and Dan had just dared him to get on top of it and eat the rest of his pancakes while pretending to be a dog. Phil had gotten up and on all fours when he’d suddenly started talking. “And then you purse your lips and flutter your eyelashes. It always worries me.”

“That’s just me thinking. Or trying to make myself look cool while I’m thinking.”

“Ah, yes. Wouldn’t want to let anyone know there were thoughts floating around your head. Might ruin your street cred.”

“More like my cool guy cred.” Phil looked at Dan gently, his fringe dipping into his eyes, his mouth tilted slightly to the right. He was looking at him like he _knew,_ like he understood all of the insecurities that brewed beneath Dan’s exterior. But while Dan was glad to have someone who recognized his stress signals and would tell him so right before eating a stack of pancakes with only his mouth, he didn’t like being reminded of the ways he tried to hide himself. When he was in high school, it had all been simpler. A girlfriend, a capacity for alcohol, and an emo haircut had been all he needed. And he could still carry forward all these parts of his identity now, but they were beginning to feel farther and farther away. Because instead of those three things, he now had a Phil, a defunct law degree, and an emo haircut that he had less because it made him feel comfortable and more because of his public image. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment when those two things had stopped overlapping.)

But instead of dealing with these feelings, Dan would throw himself into creating content and then throw himself into thinking about life and then throw himself into thinking about the future. He needed balance. Phil was balance. A careful dance of words and actions and meanings. But the issue was that Dan didn’t always know what side of the scale Phil was on. The issue was Dan zigzagging between feeling guilty about how Phil felt and feeling stupid for even thinking he was freaking out like Dan was. Because Phil was calculative and thoughtful. He didn’t indulge his every emotion like Dan did. To Phil, everything had a way it could make sense, and for three years Phil made Dan’s life make sense to him when no one else could. But now they were in new territory together, and to not know how to communicate with the one person he had always communicated with made no sense at all.

It was later that evening, when they were sitting next to each other on the couch, watching an old episode of Friends, that he decided Phil might be right about him overthinking it.

“But the people commenting ‘phan’ and asking about sexuality are nothing new,” he said, putting all his effort into making his tone stay light. “I was just thinking about how we were recognized so easily at Ikea.”

It took Phil a while to respond, but when he did his voice was deep and gravelly, a tone normally connected to intimacy and comfort, and it made Dan shudder. “I don’t mean to sound braggy, but that’s not exactly new either.”

“True. But, I was thinking. I mean, if I had seen you in an Ikea 3 years ago I would’ve gone mental.”

“So?”

“I was just thinking about how much has changed. Before I knew you, I still had a girlfriend, I watched your videos in my room after midnight, I didn’t even know I liked guys.” The last part came out quieter than the rest, which Dan hated himself a little bit for it. “I mean, I knew, but it hadn’t become real yet.”

“So you feel like everything’s more real now.”

“Yeah. I mean, we’re not just two people who want to be together. There’s now this whole world around us. We’re in less of a bubble,” and as Dan said it he realized how ironic that was, how fucking ironic, considering that they were also now desperate to have some sort of bubble around them, some semblance of a recognizable life.

“Dan, I’m not sure how us wanting to be together has anything to do with all this stress. I mean, I understand how it relates to the privacy issue, but it shouldn’t be stressful otherwise. It should be a reassurance. Like you said, we’re the ones who decide whether we lose each other. Dan had said that, when they were wrapped up together in his bed. But it felt easier to say then, more solid, than it did now, sitting a couple feet away from each other on the couch. Phil’s eyes were shining, and Dan knew this was his way of trying to comfort him. But he was still not leaning towards Dan, probably wary from their tense exchange earlier, and these things completely circumvented the feeling of closeness that Dan had been searching for.

Phil turned the volume back up on Friends and went back to studying the screen, like this conversation was over. Dan wanted to keep talking, wanted to say, _I was just thinking about what the girl had say, how she’d used the word ‘Boyfriends.’ Are we that anymore_ ? Because that was his fear, that the word didn’t fit them anymore, that no words fit them anymore. Because they had called themselves boyfriends at a time, privately, but now the word sounded like two boys running around Manchester, not two boys learning how to juggle life in London. And Dan knew it shouldn’t bother him, because they had always been indifferent to the labels, the dozens of terminology. But lately he had been reading the words a lot more on his screen, _closeted, gay, boyfriends,_ and the words had twisted in meaning.

Dan was jolted out of this thought spiral by ducks quacking. He groaned, “Phil.”

Phil grinned at him. “Look like the babies are ready for a feeding!” He picked up his cellphone and looked at the screen. “It’s PJ. I think he wants to schedule a visit to collab again soon.” Dan was about to respond when, to his surprise, Phil got up from the couch and started to walk towards his room. His brain exploded into a conglomeration of thoughts and worries: _Why is he taking the call in private? Is he still mad from before? When is the last time we actually finished an episode of TV together?_ But instead of saying any of these things he told his mind to chill the fuck out and remember that this was probably totally normal, they always spend time apart, in fact, _he_ was still a little bit peeved from before, so what was his problem?

“Okay,” Dan said. “I’ll talk to you later?”

Phil had already left the room, but he popped his head back in, phone already at his ear, to give Dan an odd look. “Yeah. Of course.” Then he left, and Dan could hear him say, “Hi, PJ,” along with his retreating footsteps.

\- - -

The issue was that Dan didn’t always know what to do with love. Even now, Phil would sometimes do something nice, like make him a cup of coffee or listen to a whole Kanye track with him, and Dan would think, _Shit, he likes me_. Then he often ended up doing something dumb, like scrunching his eyes at him, or calling him a spork, or refusing to drink the cup of coffee because it was easier to play the roles of doting boyfriend and skeptical boyfriend instead of revealing how overjoyed he really was.

Because there were moments when Dan realized how much he loved Phil, and it knocked the wind out of him. He would stare at Phil as he did something completely banal, like brush his teeth or clip his toenails, and feel dazed at the idea he was a part of his life. Then, when they crawled into bed together at night, he would curl into Phil’s chest and latch onto him, feeling his soul latching on as well.

(Once, in Manchester, in one of those moments where Dan could tell that Phil was as dazed by him as he was, they’d had the conversation. “I want to be with you forever,” Phil had whispered into Dan’s collarbone. Then he popped up to look at Dan. “I mean, if you do too.”

Dan had giggled, which he was then incredibly embarrassed about, and kissed Phil’s nose. “Yes, I do.”

Phil smiled at him for a moment, and then sat back onto his knees. “Like,” he stumbled, his voice loud but a little shaky. “I really– I know. I know that sounds crazy. But. I could do it, with you. I could do forever.” Dan had started shaking a bit then, sleepy and in love and a little bit aware of how young he was, and Phil leaned down to poke his cheek. “It’ll be hard work,” he continued softly. “That’s what my mum has always told me. A good relationship isn’t all sandboxes and rainbows. It’s hard work.

Dan giggled. “Do you mean sunshine and rainbows?”

“Okay,” Phil blushed. “So maybe I messed up the metaphor a bit.”

“That’s okay. You’re cute.”)

\- - -

Dan really began to panic when he heard Phil talking to his mom about it on the phone. It had been another week of tense normality, and Dan was just leaving his room when he heard Phil’s voice, soft and wobbly, coming from his room. Phil’s room door was closed, which was odd considering that Phil rarely closed his door. They would sometimes close their doors when they wanted to signal to each other that they needed space for the evening or were feeling down. But this was normally done by Dan, in his fits of insecurity or emotional instability that he didn’t want Phil to see. But it wasn’t often that Phil took that step, instead of just keeping on his brave face. Now, he was speaking timidly to the person on the other side of the phone.

“It’s difficult. There’s just no guide for this.” Pause. “I’m used to not caring about what people think, but it’s harder now because it involves me and Dan.” Pause. “I know, Mum, but we just don’t react to things the same way.”

 _Mum_ . He was speaking to his mum. Dan stood at the door for another minute, frozen in the thought of this. Of _course_ Phil was talking to his mum, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Phil talked to his mum about everything. And Dan knew this included him. But hearing Phil talk to his mum about these issues felt jolting. He still hadn’t called his mum again. He hadn’t spoken to her since he’d accidentally answered her call. And that wasn’t odd for their relationship, as they worked by speaking to each other sporadically, always had, and Dan knew his mother felt little resentment about it. But he remembered what she’d said, _if you want help dealing with those problems, don’t be afraid to ask_ , and it was starting to mean more to him now. Because Phil’s voice had cracked a bit as he was talking to his mum, and his voice had never cracked when talking to Dan about their relationship, ever. He wondered, was that bad?

Later, when they were on their way to the BBC for another meeting, Dan asked him about it. “Did you call your mum today?” he said, his voice low and his head angled towards Phil’s ear. (He’d spent the rest of the day pacing his room with the door closed, wondering what he should do. He’d even flipped open some of his old philosophy books and stared at the pages, relentlessly trying to re-access the sort of calm that pretending he could understand everything on the page used to give him. Instead his mind had just ended up going towards some stupid humor – to ask Phil, or to not ask Phil, that is the question – and self-depreciating thoughts – _Why was this so hard? This had never been this hard before. They’d always floated together, and now they were scraping against the sides, like two student drivers who didn’t know how to steer_.)

Phil’s eyes didn’t budge from the game of Angry Birds he was playing, but his fingers twitched and then began tapping on the back of his phone. “Yes. Did you?”

“No.”

“Is this your way of telling me that you heard me talking to my mum this morning?”

“Yeah.”

Phil sighed, and if they hadn’t been in public his face probably would’ve scrunched up in the way it did whenever Dan was being annoying. “I called my mum because I was stressed about the people constantly asking about our relationship and the fact that could prevent us getting hired by the BBC and the fact that rent is due in two weeks. And I am afraid that if I talk to you about it you’ll freak out, so I called my mum.”

“ _I’ll_ freak out?”

“Dan, I have no idea how you’re feeling these days.” They were whispering rather furiously now, and Phil broke their closeness in public rule by turning his body extremely close to Dan’s so that no one could even read their lips.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what’s up with you. You’re making all these new faces.”

“New faces?”

“Yeah, ones I haven’t seen before.”

The train doors began to open, and Phil bumped him in the side with his elbow. “Get into position,” he muttered, and Dan hated that, hated how it was starting to feel like they were in a play.

They exited the train and walked through the underground with decent space between them and their heads down. They had never rehearsed this, but it felt like they had, because they had practiced it over and over in their imaginations. At least, Dan had, and he imagined Phil doing the same. He always imagined Phil having the same reactions as him to the things that scared them, even though he was never quite sure of what was happening inside his head. At least Dan made faces; Phil was eerily silent.

They had walked for five minutes, perfectly executing this Casual Walking Stance, when Phil’s elbow made contact with Dan’s side.

“Ouch,” he muttered. “You just speared me. How sharp is your bone?”

“We’ve got a follower,” Phil whispered, his head turned slightly towards Dan’s but his posture still perfectly straight. “She’s about a dozen steps behind us, and she’ll probably approach once we’re at the crosswalk.”

Dan tried to glance backwards without being obvious, like a smooth criminal in a movie, but failed. As soon as he caught a glance of the girl he saw her squeal and give a little wave. He snapped his head back around. “I can’t believe someone’s noticed us.”

(Dan had said the same thing to Phil years ago, in what felt now like an entirely different world, as him and Phil walked the streets of his hometown. He was spending the whole week with Phil, and felt a little drunk off his presence and the video inspiration spinning around his brain and the sudden magical feeling in his life. And a boy that looked about his age had come up to him and recognized not just Phil, but Dan as well. He was cool and had a similar haircut and also liked Muse and as they chatted he told Dan that he thought he was funny. Dan’s face was buzzing, and after the boy left he grabbed Phil’s arm and said, “I can’t believe someone’s noticed us.” Phil grinned. “It’s cool, isn’t it?”)

Phil reached out his right hand and skimmed Dan’s wrist with his pinky finger – which was risky, this whole thing felt risky – and said, “It’s okay, we can do this.”

Sure enough, when they stopped at the next intersection the girl circled around to face them and practically jumped into them. “You’re Dan and Phil! Oh my god, hi!”

Phil smiled calmly at her. “Hi. Yes we are. What’s your name?”

“Ariana. How are you, Phil?”

“I’m good. And you?”

“I’m amazing. Hi, Dan!”

Dan closed his eyes. Opened them. Breathed in and out, and decided he could do this. “Hi,” he said, and smiled wide. Before he understood what was happening, he moved his arms outward and the girl burrowed herself into him. She was over-excited, but she didn’t squeeze him too hard, and he remembered being that excited by meeting YouTubers, the way they were larger than life, the way they saucily liked their caramel macchiato mustache off with their tongue. So it was all fine, he could do this.

“I can’t believe you guys are actually here and real, in front of me,” the girl continued once she had emerged. “It’s so crazy. And you look so good. Dan, doesn’t Phil just look so attractive today?”

Dan swallowed and then forced himself to look at Phil. He wanted to throw himself off a bridge. “You look like you got dressed with the lights off,” he joked, but he knew his voice sounded stale.

The girl exploded into laughter. “That is so funny. A lover’s quarrel, huh Phil?”

Thankfully Phil, smooth and seemingly unshaken, jumped in and asked the girl if she wanted a picture. “Yes!” she squealed.

Phil stepped to the side and gave Dan a look that jumped him back into action. “I should take it,” he said. “Phil is crap at taking photos.”

They both leaned in slightly to the girl, Phil bracing her at an appropriate distance away with his left hand while Dan took the photo with his. She joyously said thank you and then ran off around the corner, staring at her phone.

“I hope she doesn’t trip,” Phil said as she disappeared from view. “Maybe we should tell her to look up as she runs.”

“Yeah, maybe.” They stood side by side on the sidewalk in silence, cars rushing past to their right, a 10 minute walk still laid out in front of them. Dan wondered when this had gotten so complicated. “Maybe we should start taking a taxi.”

“Yeah,” Phil sighed, and then he said nothing else.

\- - -

Dan still hadn’t decorated his room, which Phil declared to be blasphemous. “There are figurines and posters and lamps sitting in boxes feeling forgotten, Dan. _Forgotten_!”

“I put up Wirrow’s painting,” Dan protested, pointing towards the frame that was now precariously balanced on top of his head board.

“That’s not enough. That’s sad. Your room needs some knick-knacks.”

“I’ll get to it when I feel like it.”

“Oh, no. I know what that means. That means you’ll do it in the next century. We’re going to do this now.”

“ _Phil_.”

“Come on, you loser. It’ll be fun. We could use some fun.” Phil’s voice was light, but when he said that his eyes slid to the side, and Dan suddenly noticed the darkened circles beneath them. Their back and forth had been a fine during their meeting, but afterwards it had felt a bit jolted and forced. The last couple months had taken a lot out of both of them. And he knew this was only the beginning. His stomach began to churn.

“Okay, Mr. Fun. Show me what to do.”

“Well, we’ve got these things called hands, you see?” Phil said, smiling cheekily as he made jazz hands in the air. “And we can use them to pick up things. So all you need to do is take your hands, pick a box, and then use your hands to remove an item from the box. Then–“

“Shut up, you bitch,” Dan laughed, and Phil stuck his tongue out at him before running in a figure eight towards one of the boxes. Dan watched in awe, amazed at how Phil had switched again, had seemingly worked through whatever was going on in his head and was now acting joyous and carefree.

Phil started taking items out of the box – a lamp, a cloud plushie, a stuffed Totoro – and hummed as he did so. “I’ve had that song stuck in my head all day. What is it? The one from that new boy band, and in the music video they’re running on the beach?”

“What, One Direction?”

“Yeah.”

“If we’re going to be on the radio, you’re going to need to know your music.”

“Well then you can teach me.” It was a cheesy statement, almost cringe-worthy, but somehow Phil made it sexy, winking at Dan in a way that transported him out of his body. He felt warmth travel down to his navel as Phil grabbed his sides and pulled him close. He put one of Dan’s hands on his hips and then grabbed the other in his own, moving them to the beat of nothing. “Phil, what are you doing?” Dan almost squealed, amazed by this Phil, one who didn’t seem to be at all fearful. Dan tried to ignore the fact that his stomach was still churning, tightening up at the feeling of Phil’s fingers digging into his hips. He was about to say something when Phil started singing the song. His voice started out too low and a bit pitchy as he sang, “Baby you light up my world like nobody else.”

Dan pulled back and laughed. “Okay, but if we’re doing this then we need accompaniment.” He strode back to his bed, picked up his phone, and pulled up his Spotify app. A few seconds later the song was playing at full volume, and Dan dropped the phone back onto his bed. He stepped forward and reached out, and it was as he pushed his fingers into Phil’s sides that he realized they hadn’t done this in a while, this sort of blur of friendly-flirty-sexy behavior. And Phil seemed to like it, as he was pulling Dan closer and lightly grinding his hips into Dan’s. They stayed like this for a while, swaying back and forth to this ridiculous song and laughing about how they shared One Direction’s hair styles, until Phil stepped back and started to dance on his own.

Phil didn’t dance as much as he flung his body in circles. But he did so now without hesitance, and Dan was bursting with laughter. “Your Shakira hips,” he giggled, tapping Phil’s hip bone with his forefinger.

“C’mon, shake it with me.”

“Never say that again, Phil,” Dan balked, but really he wanted Phil to keep saying it, to always say it, to never stop being this Phil who danced ferociously and sang loudly. He felt the weight, suddenly, of the stress of the last few months, with the apartment hunting and filming and fretting and moving. And there had been no space for them, no space at all, while at the same time it had seemed like they were doing all of this for them. Now they were in a new city, in a new space, and Phil seemed calm and loose in a way he hadn’t been last night, or last week, and Dan didn’t know what had changed. The feeling was twisting, doing some weird alchemy in Dan’s stomach. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said suddenly. Phil stopped moving and stared at him, Harry Styles still crooning in the background. “That’s why I’m afraid. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t know how to hold on right now.”

Phil walked slowly over to Dan’s phone and pressed the button on the side to turn the volume all the way down. His footsteps back to Dan echoed in the silence. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean, what’s wrong? I just said. I feel scared.”

“Yes, but scared of what? What happened to, ‘We’re the ones who decide whether we lose each other?’”

Dan reached up to massage his forehead, his thoughts coming in bursts of panic and irrationality that he didn’t want to share unfiltered. “Phil, you said earlier that you don’t know what’s up with me. Well I don’t know what’s up with you. One evening you’re also afraid and then the next morning you’re totally fine. One night you’re confiding in me and the next you make me feel ridiculous for confiding in you.”

Phil sighed and moved away again to sit on Dan’s bed. “Dan, I don’t mean to make you feel ridiculous. This whole situation is new, and I’m trying to learn how to deal with it, just like you,” Phil said, and Dan thought it was a nice little deflection from having to actually address his accusation. “I know there’s a lot of new things, and that you hate that, but it’s okay. We just need to keep doing the things we’ve always be doing, and we’ll be fine.”

“But that’s the thing, Phil! We used to do these things with each other to calm down! Like sit on the sofa with our arms touching but we’d pretend they weren’t touching like some cheesy movie couple. Or we’d put on a movie and makeout for a bit and then end up having leg wrestling matches on the floor. And now we don’t do those things anymore, or if we do they just don’t feel the same.”

Phil placed his hand over the bridge of his nose for a second, and sighed. He looked sort of old, Dan thought, older than he normally did. “I said I didn’t want to start overthinking everything with you.”

“Right, but then you instated some us against the world bullshit, and now we’re all weird around each other.”

“What do you mean, _weird_?”

“I mean we’re either working or trying not to brush up against each other in public or filming, and between all that there’s no time for us to just _be._ I just– I just want something familiar. I need something familiar or I’m going to go crazy. We’ve just been going, going, going since we got here and I feel like my head’s going to explode.”

Phil’s face didn’t change at all, but he patted the spot next to him on Dan’s bed. Dan sat next to him, and then forced himself to look at Phil in the eyes.

“So what do you want to do most?” Phil asked.

“I don’t know,” Dan said, and then laughed at the instability of it all. “It’s momentary. When I miss you I want to talk to you, when I feel stressed I want to watch something with you, when I want to have sex with you I want to have sex with you.”

Phil looked weary, Dan felt weary, and he wondered if there was a way that this conversation could have gone better. He didn’t think it would be so hard, asking Phil for this. Again, he felt silly, so silly. “We’re overthinking it,” Phil said eventually, and Dan felt his heart sink. “What’s new becomes familiar. It’s not set in stone. Things morph into new things.”

“Says the traditionalist.”

“I just feel like you’re freaking out over nothing.”

“Phil, I just, please– I don’t understand why you’re resisting this conversation so much. I’m just asking you for a favor.”

“I know, but it’s not a favor I feel like I want to do right now. Now _I_ feel weird. I just– I don’t know. I’m tired.”

“Okay.”

Phil stood up from Dan’s bed and then leaned down to straighten out the indent he’d made with his butt, which confused Dan greatly. He then stood up and, a little awkwardly, cleared his throat at Dan. The sound was gravely and distorted. “I love you. I will see you in the morning,” he said, and then he left and went straight to his own room, closing the door behind him. Dan stared at the spot where Phil had been, wondering why he straightened out his butt mark, wondering why that had gone so badly, wondering if his room would ever get decorated at this rate.

\- - -

That night, Phil slid in next to Dan in bed.

“Mmph?” Dan questioned as he felt Phil’s weight settle in next to his own. “What time is it?”

“It’s five. I’ve been awake since two. I can’t sleep.”

“Well that’s a role reversal,” Dan muttered, feeling himself smile a bit. Then he felt a quick peck of lips on his, which caused his eyes to shoot open. “Hi,” he said as he focused on the image of Phil’s face a couple inches from his. “I thought we were fighting.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Phil said again, which Dan supposed was a _yes_.

“C’mere,” Dan muttered, and reached out his arm to pull Phil towards his chest. Phil burrowed his face into the fabric of his t-shirt and then kept it there, so that when he spoke a few minutes later his words were soft and muffled.

“What?” Dan asked after all he heard was the rumble of Phil’s voice against his chest. He pressed a hand against Phil’s black cloaked forehead and pulled his head up.

“Don’t you blame me?” Phil whispered. “For the video?”

Dan answered immediately. “For a moment, yes. At the beginning. But then I thought, would I take back the first time I watched it? No. So, what can you do?”

Phil looked at him, and Dan could see a dozen answers to that question in his eyes. _You can hide. You can lie. You can shut the world out. Us and the world. We’ll keep them separate_.

But all Phil said was, “Okay,” and then he slipped out of Dan’s arms and left the room, leaving Dan blinking into the darkness.

\- - -

Wirrow bought Dan a calendar of naked men as a late birthday present. Dan winced when he opened the plastic bag that Wirrow had slid across the table to him and saw the first peak of skin and pubic hair. “Thanks,” he managed, his throat feeling slightly dry. He started to chuckle then, rather uncontrollably, in an effort to hide the blush he knew was spreading across his cheeks. They were in a café, a public restaurant, and this was not the place for Dan to feel his true feelings, and so immature laughter seemed like the best cover.

“I saw it at Waterstones. Made me think of you. One, because I can’t believe someone managed to get a naked calendar into Waterstones, and two, it seemed like the kind of mix-up you would’ve loved.”

Dan peaked into the plastic bag again and studied the entirety of the cover, which showed a man standing up with his legs spread wide, and the words “2012-2013 Calendar” bookended by his knees. “I am never going to be able to put this anywhere,” he laughed, and then sort of wished he hadn’t.

“Why?” Wirrow asked. “I was thinking you could put it in one of your bedrooms. Or a room that you guys don’t film in.”

“Actually, we’ve filmed in all the rooms already,” Dan said, a fact that he hadn’t thought about at the time but was now seeing the downsides of. “Plus, I’m not sure Phil will think displaying it is worth the risk.” The words were out before he thought about them, and he inwardly winced at their tone. Would he think anything different? If he told Phil about the calendar, then that’d be a conversation he’d have to have, and he wasn’t sure he wanted that.

Wirrow caught onto the tone as well. “I’m sorry, man,” he said, his left hand coming up to mess with what was left of his ashy blonde hair. “Was this a really bad choice for a gift, even a jokey gift?”

“No, no–”

“Because I was trying to be in on a joke with you, but I see now it might’ve not been in good taste.”

“It’s fine. I’m just insecure, I think.”

Wirrow looked down at the table now, and Dan realized he was dangerously close to babbling away about his insecurities. But he sort of wanted to. This conversation felt so much easier than it would if he tried to have it with Phil, mostly because him and Wirrow didn’t have as much of a history. He didn’t feel restricted by years of past conversations and whispered fears and that he worried had been both remembered and forgotten. Dan reached out to fiddle with his coffee cup, while Wirrow took another big gulp from his.

“About what?” Wirrow asked eventually. “Are you having dropping out of uni regrets?”

This was the one crisis of Dan’s that he’d openly shared with both Wirrow and Bryony, so it made sense that he jumped to that one. “No, not exactly,” Dan said, and as he ran his fingers up and down the side of his coffee cup he realized that was true. He’d been very productive since moving to London in terms of video creation, actually keeping up with his one-video-a-week goal. And he’d felt pretty proud of almost everything he’d uploaded. “Things are just more complicated. And I’ve been thinking a lot about my sexuality.” By the time he reached the end of the sentence his voice was so soft that Wirrow was leaning over the table, his head almost parallel with the top of his cup. Dan was blushing again, because he couldn’t believe he was talking about this. His sexuality felt like something he’d settled when he was 18 and should’ve stayed settled, instead of now floating up and gathering around his head like a misty cloud. He also didn’t know why he was saying it to Wirrow, and not Phil. He didn’t know if he was actually close enough to Wirrow yet to be saying these things.

“About liking boys?” Wirrow said. He, too, looked a little uncomfortable as he said it, and Dan had a sudden lurch in his stomach from wondering if Wirrow had secret prejudices.

“A little. But not directly about that. It’s just– I’ve only ever been with Phil. And right now I’m not sure I’m with Phil. I mean, I am, we’re together, I know that. But it doesn’t feel like it used to. There’s all this tension, but it’s not because we’re not doing well, but because life is just so much that we often don’t have time to be together like we used to.”

“I’m not sure if I’m the right person to ask about this, because I’m straight and I haven’t had much experience talking with anyone about it besides Phil. But I think it makes sense.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We all go through that stage post-honeymoon phase where the relationship drags. There’s a relationship and then there’s life.”

 _Post-honeymoon phase_ , Dan thought. Him and Phil had certainly had one, but had it just ended recently? Dan could remember feeling that it had ended even as he was struggling with dropping out of uni, when his late night breakdowns became regular and Phil became his emotional rock even more than before.

“But does everyone feel the pressure? And the fear? Of not knowing what they’re doing and feeling like they could mess up at every point?”

“You guys are not straight and closeted,” Wirrow said softly. “So I would guess it’s going to feel different to you.”

The word stung at Dan’s skin like a mosquito bite. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we’re closeted.” And they were, it was true, he had been part of that conscious decision, but still, the word stung in a way he couldn’t describe.

“But I think it’s normal to feel shaken-up in this way. Plus, you guys are young, you especially.”

“You mean you think it might be a sign we want to move on?”

“No, not at all. At least, I don’t think Phil does. I can’t speak for you. But you’re young and just moved to a big city. You’re seeing more of the world for the first time.”

“What I’ve seen is that it’s fucking terrifying and mean.” Dan stopped and tried to breathe slowly in order to gather his thoughts, but this conversation had ramped him up, and he could feel the energy leaking out through the shake in his elbows and the bounce of his foot. He’d had a biscotti with his coffee, and he felt very aware of the chucks of it launched between his back teeth, and his tongue flicked around wildly as he became determined to set the pieces free.

If Wirrow noticed the tenseness of his silence, he didn’t say so, but instead leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Sorry if this was all too depressing. I wasn’t prepared. When you texted asking if we could get together for coffee I thought it was about, like, a problem with my art.”

Dan chuckled. “No,” and his voice became a little smaller again. “I just wanted to hang. I don’t have many friends here besides Phil.”

“You’ve got us. Me and Bry. She thinks you’re cool.”

“I was such a fangirl when I met her.”

“Yeah. We’re all fangirls sometimes.” Wirrow smiled at him, and then got up to remove their dirty dishes. Dan knew he’d been rambling for a long time, so this was probably Wirrow’s kind way of ending this conversation. Dan wondered where Phil was. When he’d left the house, Phil had been on a quest to buy a better designed can opener, and with Phil’s nit-pickiness and he could imagine that taking him all day. But just then his phone buzzed, and Dan looked down to see a text from Phil that read _Where are u??_

 _Gone to get coffee,_ he wrote back. _why?_

_Gone where to get coffee?_

_Lou’s. It’s near the Islington station._

_Come meet me by the corner. I got us a can opener and also a can of chili to make for dinner._

He was just reading this text when Wirrow returned to the table, and he looked up to see him smiling. “Is that Phil?” Wirrow asked. “You guys should chat,” he said after Dan nodded, and suddenly Dan felt the weight of what he’d gone and implied to Wirrow today.

“We’re doing fine.”

“Sure. But all couples should chat, not just those who aren’t doing fine.” He thanked Wirrow, for the advice and for meeting him, and then let him leave the café first while he fiddled with his phone.

Dan wasn’t sure that what he wanted was to chat with Phil. He wondered, was there a way to push at Phil in order to get them closer instead of farther apart? Maybe he needed to stay calm amongst the chaos. He’d thought that stupid thought a thousand times – _maybe I’m over-reacting, just stay calm, I don’t want to overthink everything with you_ – but this time he felt like he had a purpose behind it. It randomly made him think of a scene near the end of the first Harry Potter movie, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione get caught in a plant that starts wrapping it’s stems around them. Ron starts to freak out, but Hermione discovers that the way to get free is to stay completely calm as the plant tugs at you. (“Are they going to die?” Dan had asked his mum when they watched the movie for the first time, even though his mum had also read the book out loud to him. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened at the end, and felt the sudden fear that, even though the series was supposed to go on, this scene was going to play some royal trick on him and break his heart.

“No,” his mum had said, reaching out to stroke the top of his head. “See, Hermione is smart. She’s read all about this plant before. They’ll be fine.”

As Dan stared at the TV screen in suspense, he kept repeating that to himself: _they’ll be fine, they’ll be fine, they’ll be fine…._ )

With a burst of energy and an intention to say fuck-all to his fears, Dan left the shop and rounded the corner to where Phil was. He could see him standing at the other side of the block, all bright red t-shirt and white skin and black hair. _I’m sorry_ , he was ready to say. _Forget about all my blabberings. I’m just an insecure, possessive jerk sometimes. There’s a relationship and then there’s life_. But when Phil rounded the corner, his face was lit up brighter than the sun, and all of Dan’s preparation whizzed out of his head at the sight of it.

“I’m going to make us the chili tonight,” he said loudly once Dan was even remotely in hearing range.

“Oh?” Dan asked, cocking his eyebrow. “Why? Did you lose a Mario Kart bet that I’ve forgotten about?”

“No. I just want to.”

Dan shrugged. “Okay.” By this point he was standing right in front of Phil, both of them trying to keep eye contact even though they were on a busy walkway during peak hour and bodies were constantly rushing between them.

“I was thinking,” Phil began. “We should do something tomorrow.”

“I’ve got to film a video tomorrow. And then you need to film one after me. Remember, you made me promise I’d be fast.”

“Okay, then after that.” Phil beamed at him between the bodies and hands and blurring colors. “Let’s do something tomorrow night.”

“Like what?”

“Let’s do something new.” Phil’s eyes were shining as he said it, and Dan immediately got the significance of it, understood that this was Phil saying, _Here you go, Dan, I’ll do you that favor, I’ll do what’s needed for us to work._ Dan wanted to stay calm, but he also loved the idea of him and Phil banding together, reinforcing their bond with the glue of new traditions and rituals and things that made them shiver into each other with anticipation.

He didn’t know when they decided to be closeted. He hated the word, he decided, hating even thinking it. Something about the tone of it, the way the hard ‘c’ and clashed with the repetitive ‘et’ and ‘ed’ sounds made him wince. But there was something intoxicating about breaking their rules sometimes. Something enchanting about giving up, about jumping head first into each other. And so Dan catapulted himself at Phil, wrapped his arms around Phil’s neck, and buried his face into his shoulder. “What we going to do?” he said.

“There are so many things we could do,” Phil whispered into his ear. “There’s you and me and the world. The whole goddamn world.”

\- - -

They decided to have a date night. Like, a real date night, with a candlelit dinner and a movie and luxurious sex afterwards. They’d never done anything so official before, and Dan felt oddly out of his comfort zone, as if all the dress-up and preparation made them anew. The night before their planned date, he curled up on his bed and browsed on his laptop for hours in an attempt to soothe the butterflies in his stomach. Really, he knew he should be trying to write a new video. He’d been doing a good job of sticking to his upload schedule, probably the best he’d ever done, in fact, and it was making him feel better about himself. But no ideas came, because he kept thinking about Phil, and Phil’s bright eyes, and his skin, and how it was absolutely crazy that he was his to have a date night with.

At some point in this daydream, he remembered that they were almost out of lube, and if he didn’t purchase more ahead of time he’d most definitely regret it later. He typed in the site he’d been using for the past few years, and then began to scroll down until he saw their usual brand. As Dan scrolled, he realized that they rarely purchased this stuff in a store, except for a couple times early on in their relationship, when they thought less. They were thinking all the time now.

Half of his brain was snorting at some of the ridiculous names he scrolled by as he looked for their normal kind, and half of his brain was panicking. He’d been obsessively panicking about things for as long as he could remember – how he was bullied, his sexuality, his lack of interest in law. The problem was that he always panicked about things he had no control over, things he couldn’t change. But obsessing over him and Phil felt different. Dan felt paralyzed by the realization that this was both something he actually _could_ control and something he sometimes had no control over. He hated that divide, hated the complete lack of power he had over the opinions that came out of their internet presence, and somehow that made him feel even less motivated to focus on the power he did have. Phil had agreed to do this date night, he had agreed to help give Dan what he needed, but at this moment Dan wasn’t even sure what he needed. He felt burnt out and exhausted.

Dan wasn’t sure he’d ever truly understood the meaning of his relationship with Phil. But wrapped up in his existential crises about school and purpose and productivity was one about love and forever, and what those two words meant. He’d reveled in meeting Phil, loving the way he looked at him like he made Phil feel good without even touching him. He’d basking in their first few months, even year of being together, when he’d struggled to wrap his head around the fact that Phil was actually his. But as the reality of it had set in and their need for each other solidified, Dan eventually realized that he needed Phil with him in order for life to feel normal. Phil was no longer the cherry on top of life, but the whole freaking sundae, and that terrified him more than anything.

Dan slept terribly that night, his daydream-turned-nightmare invading every inch of his consciousness. He woke up for what felt like the billionth time at 2PM to the sound of Phil singing from the kitchen. He spent five minutes struggling to get out of the cocoon of blankets he’d wrapped himself in and then trudged closer to Phil’s voice, which was soft and high, except for the moments where he’d suddenly drop an octave.

“Good morning, superstar,” he grunted as he shielded his eyes from the sunlight streaming in through the window. “Preparing your audition for Britain’s Got Talent?”

Phil turned from the pan he was making French toast in and smiled. “Dan. Life-changing news. I watched that movie Tangled last night, and I’m obsessed.”

“Why is this life-changing?”

“Because the songs were so good! I just want to sing them all the time now.” Phil turned back towards the stove and began to sing again as he flipped a piece of bread, his hips swaying back and forth the whole time. Dan giggled and lightly slapped Phil’s moving butt.

“You’re in a good mood this morning,” he said, and leaned in to press a kiss to Phil’s cheek.

Phil have him a half-smile in response. “I hope you are too. I got so bored while you were sulking in your room last night.”

“I was not sulking.”

“Oh, so were you watching Tangled too?” Phil asked as he moved a piece of French toast to a plate, holding the spatula with a shaky hand and almost dropping it on the counter twice. “Because if I find out I watched it without you for no reason I’ll be sad.”

Dan laughed, and found he felt better. He always felt so much better after he woke up, saw the sun, talked to Phil, drank some water. He needed to remember that. “So was your night that boring?” he asked.

“Not completely. Wirrow called. We chatted for awhile about stuff. And then PJ did as well, and we talked about his film ideas. Some of the projects he’s developing sound really exciting. He might need me to help out.”

Dan’s stomach dropped again, first at the mention of Wirrow and then at Phil’s excitement for PJ. The calendar Wirrow had bought him was still in its plastic bag, stuffed in the drawer under his bed. He felt stupid about that, stupid that he hadn’t shown it to Phil. But there was also something else eating at him, something that had been there since Phil first started mentioning PJ’s projects. He and Phil created together a lot, and Dan’s channel was doing pretty well right now, but the thought made his stomach feel hot. Was he _jealous_ of Phil wanted to do some work outside of YouTube and without him? He walked over to the sink and filled himself a glass of water. “Oh, cool.”

Despite Dan’s fluctuating mood, Phil seemed really excited about their date, like strangely so. After breakfast, he spent 15 minutes shuffling between different DVDs on their shelf to decide what they should watch, and by 5PM he was already prepping the ingredients for dinner.

“Chili. I want to make chili. Without exploding it all over the ceiling. We’ll see. Can’t mess up tonight,” Phil said, and then he winked at Dan and Dan felt his body turn red all over. Phil was a like a cat in heat sometimes, rubbing his body on Dan and the furniture and flirting up a storm. Dan didn’t know how to handle it, wasn’t able to switch back and forth as easily.

And the whole night when on like that: Phil, tapping Dan’s leg with his foot under the table as they ate. Phil, making jokes about the phallic shape of the baguette he’d made into garlic bread. Phil, laughing loudly at Dan’s mediocre jokes. Phil, pulling Dan close as they settled on their couch. Phil, rubbing circles on Dan’s lower back for the entire movie. Phil, gently placing his hands over Dan’s entire body in a way that made him forget where he was or who he was or what he had been worrying about.

It took until they were lying in Phil’s bed for Dan’s brain to really release himself to the moment. He breathed deeply. He studied Phil’s face as Phil gently laid down on top of him. His eyes were crinkled from smiling and his cheeks were slightly flushed from when they made out for a little bit on the couch.

“Relax,” Phil whispered into his ear. Then he crawled down Dan’s body until his mouth was at his bellybutton and lifted up his shirt to begin kissing the skin around it. It was magnificent, Dan thought. For the first time in so long, he truly felt like they were in sync. Phil went on like that, lathering Dan’s entire mid-section before moving up to kiss Dan again, his hands always moving up and down Dan’s sides. Dan tried to keep up, tried to do more than just be kissed. He was in the middle of dragging his hand up the inside of Phil’s leg and working a bruised spot onto the lower side of his collarbone when he heard Phil grunt, “Hey, are we okay?”

Dan pushed up at Phil’s shoulders and stared at his face for a couple of huffy breaths. “Of course. Wha-” He cut off to breathe again, his body worked up in a way that made it difficult for his brain to focus. “We’re about to have sex and you’re asking me if we’re okay?”

“You seem like you’re thinking about something.”

“I seem like I’m thinking about–” Dan began, but then stopped mid-sentence when he remembered that sometimes, often when they were curled up and naked with each other, Phil wasn’t good at handling his exasperation. “If I was thinking about something, how would that affect whether we were okay?”

“I feel like you’re always thinking about us, recently,” Phil’s voice was deep as he said it, and Dan could tell this wasn’t a prelude to a confessional, but Phil feeling irritated. “I just don’t want you to worry about things so much. I love you.”

Dan hesitated, not quite sure how he was expected to respond. He was still hard, Phil balanced between his knees, his face still flushed, but he wasn’t sure if Phil was offering him an open equal-sided conversation. What made discussions so difficult for them sometimes was that they were well-practiced at having one of them confess their heart out while the other listened, but not so good at confessing at the same time. Then, deciding he should be truthful, he said, “Honestly, it’s been hard for me to focus on what we’re doing right now. I keep thinking about us and how so many people out there want to know about our relationship–”

Phil groaned and rolled to the side, landing on his back. "Why do we always have to talk about this?"

"Always?" Dan asked, rolling onto his side so that he could face Phil. "You’re the one who brought this up just now. I was trying to give you a hickey."

"I don't want to talk about it because we have to think about it all the time, all through the day. And now I'm tired, and I feel like I miss you because I'm not sure if I ever let myself really look at you and think about how amazing you are, because I’m always thinking about other stuff that I don’t know how to control. And I hate that I don’t know how to fix it."

Phil brought his hand up to his eyes and covered them, and for a moment Dan wondered if he was crying, and he hated how he was never quite sure how Phil was feeling about all of this. _But you have a plan,_ Dan wanted to say. _Us and the world. We’ll keep them separate._ But he wondered if that would be too mean, if his bitterness would come out too strong. “Phil, it feels wrong to me to say this is something we can't talk about,” he said instead, and he realized his voice was dangerously close to wobbling.

"Just not on date night, okay? I hate fighting. And now it's been 5 minutes and we're still doing it."

Dan frowned, confused at how Phil said “date night” like they’d been doing exactly this for years, alarmed at how it hadn’t even crossed his mind this could be considered fighting. "How is this fighting? We're having a conversation."

"No, we're fighting.” Phil reached over and determinedly tugged on the end of Dan’s shirt, like he was trying to hold onto something. “Can I take your shirt off, please?"

Dan put his hand on top of Phil’s and gently removed it. "Phil, there's a difference between having a conversation and fighting.”

“Not with stuff like this. This serious stuff. That’s always bad. It’s like with politics and war.”

“You can't think of all conversations about our relationship as fights. That's not a good thing, Phil."

Phil stared up at the ceiling, like he sometimes did when he didn’t want to make eye contact. "I don't know what you're talking about,” Phil said lightly. “I'm on a date with my boyfriend."

Dan rolled away from Phil so that he was almost at the edge of the mattress. Phil was no longer trying to touch him, but that made nothing about this better. "That's like repression," Dan said quietly.

He felt Phil pull the blankets towards himself, which in turn tugged Dan closer to him. "What?"

“Saying we can’t talk about our relationship. That’s repressing it.”

When Phil spoke, his voice was as quiet as Dan’s had been. “No, Dan. Not at all. I just don’t want to talk about what our audience should know about our relationship. Because they don’t need to know anything.”

“But what if I need to know?”

“What?”

“I need to know about our relationship, Phil. About how we’re doing. How much did we ever plan out? Talk out? Right now we’re in this weird limbo where we do everything together but we have to hide a lot, and I feel like this plan you have is really just a cover for repression, for hiding all the things we learned to love about ourselves.”

“And so now we have to reevaluate everything?” Phil looked horrified, his eyes wide and skin stretched over his cheekbones as he stared at Dan. _Not reevaluate,_ Dan wanted to say, _just re-iterate_ , but the words got lost in his throat. Phil slowly sat up and removed the covers from his body. “Looks like us doing something new didn’t work either,” he said, and then didn’t get up, but sat there, studying the marbling of pink and white on his fingernails.

\- - -

(They had decided to be closeted because the internet was ruthless. Neither Dan or Phil had known this when they’d started sharing things online, and could never have guessed it. But ruthless the internet was, with sharp teeth and a fatal bite and a thirst to know everything about everyone. When they realized this, they had already shared things about themselves that they didn’t want anyone else to know.

Once they realized that people were taking the idea of them as a couple seriously and not as a fandom ship, Phil had retreated into his room. Later, Phil came into Dan’s room and drew back the covers, settling his body directly on top of Dan’s, so that their noses were touching. Dan groaned and wound his fingers into Phil’s hair and tried not to pant. They needed a bubble, Dan had decided, he needed a bubble, one in which he could pant relentlessly and Phil could kiss his hip bone without him getting all meta. Not everything had to have a deep meaning, he decided. The internet just made everything more complicated.)

\- - -

The next night, in the middle of an episode of Glee, Phil grabbed Dan’s hand and hauled him off the couch. He led him down the hallway, and for a moment Dan thought he was going to drag him into his bedroom and throw him against the bed, all dramatic. But instead, Phil stopped once they had reached the junction between their bedrooms, and he turned to face Dan then, his hand still tightly grasped in his.

“It’s not repression,” he said, a little breathless.

“What?”

“The whole separation thing. It’s not repression. It’s just, like, momentary selection. Which is different. Because it’s not denial. It’s just, like, protection, you know?”

Phil was looking at Dan eagerly, like was looking for a grand response, like he was waiting for a confirmation that that had squashed all his fears. But it hadn’t, because Dan had a whole bunch of other questions now, like _What’s the difference between denial and repression?_ and _How is it that we are both shutting out the world but in completely different ways_? But he was tired and didn’t want to see Phil’s scared face again, so instead he just said, “Okay.”

“Okay, good.”

“I mean,” he began again, and then thought _oh no_ , because he felt his bitterness, his anger that he tried to push onto others and the internet and not on Phil, never on Phil, rising through his chest and up his throat. “I have more to say, but I wouldn’t want you to think we were fighting.”

Phil straightened up in a way he sometimes did when he felt threatened, and it made him almost a little taller than Dan, taller in a way that reminded him of that first year when he always felt smaller and in awe of Phil’s presence. “We’re fighting because you keep asking these big-level questions. I can’t think about these things all the time. You _know_ that.”

“I know, but I need something from you, I’m freaking out here.”

“Dan, listen. Yes, sometimes I think about pain. Yes, sometimes I am scared. Yes, sometimes I am worried about being outed and not getting a job. But I can’t think about these things all the time, because I have to help you stay calm. I have to keep moving. That’s how _I_ work. You know this, you’ve said it’s helpful.”

“It is helpful, when I’m having a crisis. But if you’re also having a crisis, if we’re both having one, then we need to figure out a new way to balance each other out. I just need to know where you’re at.”

“In what?”

“In, I don’t know, this game we’re playing with the internet? Where we’re people with lives and then people with fans and I never thought it would get this confusing? You say things to the camera that honestly make me nervous sometimes and then I have to remind myself that if you felt that way in real life you’d probably tell me.”

“I don’t know what the hell we’re doing, Dan. Is that what you want to hear? Our relationship is hanging over our heads like a liability, and I just...don’t know. It’s scary. But the fridge is empty, and we need to go grocery shopping, and I need to call my mum, and _you_ probably need to call your mum, so why don’t we do all those things now instead of–”

“No,” Dan interrupted, “No.” Phil was halfway into his room, and Dan reached out and pulled him back into the hallway. “I hate how you do that. You just casually throw out these huge bombs and then say you’re fine if we don’t talk about it for a while. When you know it’s going to be the only thing I think about for weeks. It’s like an ambush. Leaves me fucking blindsided.”

Phil’s face contorted itself several times before he said, “You’re not the only one who has trouble keeping up sometimes. We’ve been having like four different conversations at the same time for the past two months. And I felt so much better before any of it started happening.”

“That’s not how it works. Sometimes you need to talk about things, and at first you’ll feel worse but in the end you’ll feel better.”

“That doesn’t sound like something you’d say. I don’t even know what you’re saying.”

“Listen to me – Phil! Stop running away. I’m saying I want to be with you forever and I know you want to be with me forever but it’s been awhile since we talked about what forever means.”

“Forever,” Phil gasped.

“Yes, forever. That’s what we said. That’s what _you_ said.”

Phil looked scared in a way that Dan had never seen before. Suddenly he wanted to get as far away from that conversation before, to strike it from the record. “Let’s talk about this again in the morning–” he started to say, but Phil had walked past him and back towards the lounge before he could finish the sentence.

\- - -

              The issue was that Dan didn’t always know what to do with love. He often ended up doing something dumb, like scrunching his eyes at Phil, or calling him a spork, or telling him that they’d be together forever.


	3. September

Dan was awoken at 7:20am the next morning by a text from Phil.

_I’m gonna go visit PJ for the weekend._

Dan stared at the words, vision blurry and struggling to adjust to the light of his screen, for almost a whole minute before he reacted, angrily.

_why the hell are u awake?_

_I decided I’m going to go visit PJ this weekend to help him film. Just bought tickets._

_what the hell phil_

_just wanted to let you know._

_phil you’re just avoiding me, i’m not stupid._

Phil didn’t respond. Dan typed quickly, sitting up in his bed now: _phil._

He waited a whole minute, tapping his fingers against his thigh, and then called him. “Phil,” he said when Phil answers, thank god. “What are you doing? We don’t duck out on each other like this.”

“I’m not necessarily ducking out you.”

“Necessarily?”

“Dan, I don’t want you to panic. I just need some space to breathe. Not space like _space_ like I need space from _us_ , we’re totally fine and I don’t want you to panic. But yeah. Space.”

“We are _not_ totally fine. I want to talk to you. Like, really talk. Can you come here?”

“Need to pack. Leaving soon.”

“Okay, well can we talk tomorrow?”

“Adam’s coming today.”

“What?”

“Adam’s coming today to stay with us, remember? For a month.”

“A month? You’re saying we’re not going to be able to talk for a month?”

“I’m not saying that, I’m just– Listen, I’m sorry. I know how this looks. But the Adam thing has been scheduled since before we moved. And I’ve got to go pack now. I’m sorry.”

“Fine. Okay,” and then he hung up before Phil could, throwing his phone to the side and flopping back down on the bed. He felt exhausted and sad, and also sort of pissed. _How dare Phil do this to me_ , a part of him thought. _How dare he just avoid me after being so weird_ – But then, as always, the anxious part of his mind whirred to life and threw all of his own flawed moments back at him, his explosive reactions in liveshows, the times that he answered questions that he probably shouldn’t of, or that Phil said he probably shouldn’t of. _I don’t want to respond to them at all. That’s how I feel most comfortable dealing with it_ , Phil had said. _So, silence_. Was silence the best policy? He glanced down at his phone screen, which was still on Phil’s messages. That’s what Phil was doing now, to him, and it made Dan want to burrow under his covers and listed to angry music, maybe cry for a little, and not emerge for weeks.

Suddenly, the Front Bottoms started singing at full volume, and his phone screen flashed to an incoming call from his mum. _No_ , Dan thought, _Silence can’t always be the best policy._ But then he still didn’t answer the phone, and instead threw it back down beside him. Because he sucked, and Phil sucked, and the internet sucked. Everything sucked.

Dan stayed in his room with the door closed, but his thin walls allowed him to hear when Phil eventually emerged from his own, slamming the door behind him, packed bags in hand, his hair no doubt haphazardly straightened and his glasses slapped onto his face. Dan glanced at his phone to see that it was still not yet 10AM. He groaned, and then pressed a pillow over his face as he listened to Phil trip down the hallway, cursing softly as he stumbled down the stairs, and then fail to quietly shut the front door. He sucked, Phil sucked, the internet sucked, everything sucked.

When Dan’s mum called him for the third time in half an hour, he couldn’t bring himself to not answer. “Hello?” he muttered into his phone. He was star-fished out on his bed, face down, contemplating his life and his place in the world and whether he was a total useless idiot.

“Daniel,” she responded, “you’re alive.” Her voice was half fond and half-irritated, and it was the kind of tone she’d always used when Dan did something she didn’t approve of but didn’t hate enough for her to fight it, like when he’d pierced his ears. (“Daniel,” she’d said, “why do you want a hole in your body?”

“It’s cool,” Dan had responded. “I like it.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “But I don’t like it.”

“I know. That’s part of what makes it cool.” Dan had done his best to keep his voice steady, and grinned at her in a way that masked his inner panic of _Please, mom, don’t ask me about it more, I’m trying to fit in but I’m also trying to survive school and people are mean, people suck_.

She hadn’t berated him anymore, just gave him a half-smile and said, “Beware of the piercing sickness,” and Dan had stayed up for half the next night, staring at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck that could be.)

“Yes, I’m alive,” he responded. “What’s up?”

“Oh, it’s been a normal Saturday morning. Your father and I got coffee, and went to the botanical garden. Your brother is still asleep.”

“Of course he is. Any sane person would be.”

“So why aren’t you?”

Dan hesitated, and for a moment considered telling her the truth, considered saying, _Me and Phil are fighting or maybe not fighting, but either way I’m stressed as fuck and slept like shit, and I love making videos but also don’t know if we’ll make enough money, and also half my personal life is online._ But how would she respond? What could she say that would fix this? In the end, he said “Because you called me repeatedly.”

His mum sighed, “Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush. Call it motherly instinct, but I feel like something is wrong, Daniel. I sense it. And I wonder if you need some advice. Unsolicited advice, I understand, but advice.”

“I don’t need advice, Mum. I already know that my chosen career path is incredibly risky, that I’m a disappointment for dropping out of uni, that I’m–.”

“Not about those things, Daniel. I swear, you say you want my support, but then sometimes you make it so hard for me to actually support you.”

Dan sighed, and buried his head further into his pillow. “I’m sorry, mum,” he said, not caring how muffled his voice might be. “It’s how I deal with my own thoughts and stuff. But I’m okay, I swear.”

“And you and Phil? It must have been stressful, all of this.”

“We’ve been together three years. Our relationship isn’t unstable. We’ve had years to practice this.”

His mum paused for a moment, in a way that Dan knew couldn’t be good, because he had just done the thing where he brashly says something in the hope that it will become true, even if part of him knows it won’t. “It’s not always about time,” she said slowly. “When you’re with someone for a long time you go through lots of stages, and sometimes that’s even harder than a relationship being new.”

 _Shit_ . She’d called him out, and now he could hear Wirrow’s voice in his head, along with his mum’s, saying _you guys are closeted_ , and Dan suddenly wished that word meant something else, or if they could be closeted without actually being _closeted_ , because he really hated it. “I know,” he responded, trying to keep his voice steady. “I agree.”

“You agree–“ his mum began, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

“But let me deal with it. I know Phil. I think I know how to do this,” he said. After all, trying to speak things into existence was an addictive habit that he couldn’t just kick. And as he said the words, he actually started to feel better. He _did_ know Phil, and he knew that Phil was more solid-minded than him. Where he panicked, Phil took a moment to get his feet back on the ground, and that was all this was.

\- - -

Phil didn’t call or text him at all that day, and Adam arrived in the evening, sweaty and apparently very happy to see Dan.

“Mate!” he yelled as he dropped his bags onto the carpet right inside their front door and pulled Dan into a hug. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” Dan said, and he tried to seem more alive, less burnt out, less panicked. “How was the trip here?”

“Oh, okay,” Adam said as he shook out his arms and then swept his blond hair off his forehead.  
“Cramped as always. But I’m thankful for the place to crash.”

“No problem, me and Phil have both been there.”

“Yeah, where’s the old chameleon?”

Dan laughed, couldn’t help himself, because if Phil were here he would’ve loved to hear himself called that. “He’s away for the weekend. Last minute thing. Helping our friend PJ film some stuff. But he’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“Sweet.”

“We have a meeting on Thursday, and we’ll have to film some videos throughout the week. But other than that we can just hang this week.”

Adam smiled as he pushed his hair from his forehead, and glanced around them, as if he was valuing everything in the house. “Yeah, you’re waiting around to hear about a job, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“That must be scary.”

“It is. It’s certainly enough to make you have an existential crisis.”

Adam laughed, loud and brash, and Dan leaned down to pick up Adam’s duffel bag so that he couldn’t see he wasn’t laughing too. “That’s your thing on youtube, isn’t it? Your branding?”

“I guess. I try to be smart and philosophical. I don’t just want to be making pointless videos. I want to show that this is something I really care about, something at the caliber of law, if I had actually been good at that.”

“Well from your subscriber count I’d say you’re not doing too bad.”

Dan grimaced. “That’s not everything.”

Adam winked and said, “That’s what you say once you have a lot,” and Dan gave him a pained smile back, because it was true, and he hated that it was true.

“I sort of wish it was like before, when I had fewer subscribers.” With the weight of Adam’s duffel bag starting to cause his arm to ache, he gestured at him to follow him up the stairs.

“It is sort of like you’re everywhere now,” Adam said as they began the trek up, and Dan found himself envious of how not-out-of-breath he sounded. “Like everyone wants to know everything about you. That must be scary. But you’ve got Phil you know, that’s nice. You’ve got someone with you who understands.”

“Yeah it’s….” _Confusing_ , Dan found himself wanting to say. But instead, he went with, “nice.”

\- - -

When Phil returned on Sunday night, he seemed jittery and a bit wired, and he didn’t look Dan directly in the eyes when he spoke to him. He gave Adam a big hug, said “Hi, how was the trip here?” and seemed generally calm around him, but whenever he got near Dan he stiffened up. While Adam was telling Phil about his ideas for his next videos, Phil wandered to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, and that made Dan feel even more unnerved. Phil didn’t even like tea that much, and if he was making a cup of tea to bring to bed with him, that must have meant his nerves were really on high. And the point of his trip to PJ’s, Dan had told himself, was to calm his nerves. It was true that Phil often needed time to think when he wasn’t exactly sure what he was feeling. Phil had to fully develop his thoughts before he shared them, and then when he did it was always at the most inopportune times, like halfway through an episode of Glee or right as they stepped out of the shower or before they got into a taxi. Phil not knowing how he felt about this wasn’t a good sign. _But you know Phil,_ Dan thought again. _You know how to do this._

Soon after Adam finished telling Phil about his ideas, he let out a big yawn. “I think I need to hit the sack early tonight. I’m still really tired from packing everything up. Moving is hard work.”

Dan nodded. “Dude, we sympathize.”

“Is the fold-out bed comfortable enough?” Phil asked, glancing at Dan for the first time that night with eyes that said _You remembered to set it up, right? Adam hadn’t been sleeping on the couch, has he?_ Adam confirmed to Phil that the fold-out bed was fine, and then gave them both shoulder-pats goodnight.

After that, he and Phil headed to their own bedrooms, because that was their spiel when they had guests who weren’t totally privy to their relationship status. But before they closed the doors behind them, something rose in Dan’s chest and he placed his hand on Phil’s shoulder. Phil turned easily to face him, but his eyes looked tired. “Can we talk tomorrow?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Phil said, which wasn’t ideal, but Dan was mostly relieved he hadn’t said “About what?”

“You can’t just leave me hanging. That’s not okay. It tortures me, you know it does.”

“I promise, Dan, I’m not trying to do anything to you.” His eyes really did look tired, so tired, and Dan felt like what he was really saying was _Neither of us are in control here, there are people on the internet who have so much power over us, I know you said that It’s up to us if we lose each other or not, but it doesn’t feel that way right now._

Dan curled his fingers together, uncurled them, gazed at Phil and wondered when they’d last kissed. He never used to wonder that, because they used to kiss constantly, but that had wavered over the past year. He wanted to follow Phil into his room, but something in his eyes said that he would only let them have this conversation here. The hallway had quickly become their neutral zone, and Dan knew that Phil hated having tough conversations in bed. (“Never go to bed angry, my mum always says,” Phil said to Dan once, when they were in Manchester, and Dan had just yelled at Phil because he’d felt judged by him after sharing that he wanted to drop out of uni. “And if you have to go to bed angry, then don’t be angry in bed. My mum didn’t say that second part, I added it. But I like to think that if she ever thought of it, she would say it.”)

“I love you,” Dan said, and then he felt terrible for saying it, because he knew he was only doing so because things felt weird. But thankfully Phil didn’t seem upset by this, and he walked forward to kiss Dan on the cheek, right next to his nose.

“I love you. Don’t ever worry about that part, Dan. I love you,” he said. And then he leaned back, smiled, and walked into his room.

Dan sighed as he watched Phil close the door behind him. Deep within him something felt unchained and desperate.

\- - -

Every day for the next week Dan woke up thinking about how him and Phil needed to film videos, plan for their BBC meeting, try to talk to each other, and entertain Adam all at the same time. It was cruel, but there were many moments that he felt really fucking annoyed at Adam.

When it got to Thursday, BBC Meeting Day, Dan and Phil got ready in total silence. They bustled around the kitchen, not clearly avoiding each other but also never interacting.

“Woah,” Adam said when he came in. “It’s tense in here. Are you guys that nervous about your meeting?”

Phil cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, that’s it.”

There was a long moment of silence before Dan added. “Now we’re pitching a Christmas Special to them, specifically, so we need to have more Holiday-centric ideas. It’s a little hard to do that during summer when it’s a million fucking degrees.” He could tell that his voice sounded harsh, that he was channeling his aggressions and frustrations into his words.

Adam made a couple more attempts at comforting them, and then joined them in their silent eating.

The meeting was at 12PM, and by some miracle they got to it early. They stood off to the side and watched Nick Grimshaw give a rundown of that day’s album charts. While he talked about the Arctic Monkeys, Dan poked Phil in his side. It was his peace offering, a question of if they’re okay. Phil turned to look at him, his face in work mode. But then he gave him a little half smile, the corner of his mouth turning up to be parallel with his fringe. And then he poked Dan back. Dan let out a breath of relief. That was a _Yes, we’re okay_ . At least, that was what it had always meant. That knowledge allowed Dan’s head to clear enough that he was now able to focus more on what Nick was actually saying, take in the details of the radio set around him. He worked on being present in the moment, the _job_ that he came to London for, and ignore the voice in his head asking _was that enough to be sure_?

Of course it was. He knew Phil. He knew how he worked, how they worked. And that didn’t just change.

The meeting ran smoothly, or at least Dan’s head was clear enough to allow himself to think that. And he walked out feeling the lightest he felt in months, until he realized that him and Phil hadn’t really said anything to each other that day. In the meeting they’d spoken to each other in order to play off of each other’s sentences, but they hadn’t had a true conversation.

Dan told himself he was going to try in the taxi, was going to bring up a stupid story of something he’d done while Phil was away, or even tell Phil that he’d talked to his mum. But they got in the taxi cab, Phil told the driver their address, and then it fell silent. And this silence was different than normal.

(“You’re really uncomfortable with silence, aren’t you?” Phil had said to him once. It had been before they’d met in person, when they still existed to each other only as names and fuzzy pictures on a screen.

“Um, I don’t know,” Dan had said, fiddling with the hem of his pajama pants. “I just, I like to know what things mean. And silence can mean so many things. It’s scary”

“No,” Phil had said, his voice low and tempting and sexual like it so often was during their long Skype calls. “That’s the best part about silence. You get to just appreciate being with the other person. I like that. You should too.”

“Okay,” Dan said, because he would definitely try. And even though he didn’t think there was a chance of him beating the nervous voice in his head, he certainly wanted Phil to think there was.)

In moments like these, where his relationship with Phil was rocky and he felt frustrated with himself for caring so much and putting in so much effort, Dan worried that he needed Phil too much. So instead of over-thinking the amount of things they’d said directly to each other that day, he tried to remember what it was like to not need Phil, to not sense his presence next to him on the seat, to not communicate with him at all through invisible signs and silent conversations and mental wavelengths.

When the taxi dropped them off, Phil stopped Dan before they could approach the front door, dropping a hand onto his shoulder like he’d done to Phil last night.

“Dan,” he said, and then he pulled his hand back. “We didn’t say anything to each other the whole drive back.”

Dan blinked, feeling like he was being lifted out of his body. What were the chances that Phil had actually felt the same as him? He swallowed down the feeling that this was a bad sign and said, “I know.”

“It was weird.”

He didn’t know why he didn’t say _Yes, I agree, it was weird, thank god you agree_ , but he didn’t. Instead he pushed forward with this weird Freaky Friday where he was Phil and Phil was him. “Phil, we often don’t talk when we’re in a taxi. And that’s okay. The silence is fine.”

“I know, just,” Phil stuttered. “This time the silence felt different and super awkward. It made me think, maybe we can’t talk to each other anymore. Maybe we’re burnt out.”

“What?”

“I mean, we’ve been with each other for, like, three years, Dan. Three years. That’s actually quite a while. I don’t think we should still be having these issues, still be struggling after three years.”

“Struggling with what? With fighting?”

“We’re not fighting,” Phil said softly, which meant that they were, but Phil didn’t know exactly how he felt about it. “I was talking to PJ.”

“You were talking to _PJ_ –“

“–and he said that for him it’s always been after three years that you sort of know what you want.”

“–Instead of me? Then that’s our problem, Phil. We’re not actually talking to each other. We’re talking to our friends–“

“–Or the internet,” Phil said, surprising Dan by actually addressing his point. “Bitching to people on the internet.”

“You haven’t left me much choice.”

Phil’s eyes widened slightly, and Dan watched his face smooth out until he just looked tired. “You said a few days ago that I’ve blindsided you. Maybe so, but you blindside me when you do stuff like that. You also aren’t great at this either.”

“I know that I’m not great at it! I’m shitty! But you’re supposed to be good at this Phil, and that’s what’s so weird about this whole situation.” Phil didn’t say anything, but stood still, his back hyper-straight, looking like a statue. “It’s not always easy being in a relationship, Phil. You know that. You’ve said that to me before.”

“Maybe things change?” And Phil said it like a question, like he too felt so confused by the things coming out of his mouth. “PJ was saying that sometimes people change, and it can be hard to adjust.”

“But you said yesterday that you love me, and that hasn’t changed, and I shouldn’t worry about that–“

“I know.”

“Let me finish! So I don’t think we’ve changed. Our circumstances have changed, that’s been the challenge.”

“I don’t know. Everything feels different. And if we’re going to be able to do this job together, then we can’t be dealing with this extra stress.”

“Are you crazy? Phil–”

“Just,” Phil began as he moved away from Dan’s outstretched arm and towards their front door. “Adam’s probably waiting for us.” And then he rushed through the door and was gone. Dan heard the thumps of his footsteps as he bounded up the stairs.

\- - -

That night, Dan dreamed of meeting Phil.

He was on the train from Reading to Manchester, and time was moving too fast, and he was afraid he would have to leave before he even had a chance to digest that Phil was real, that he was there, that he had a chance to not screw this up.

The train seats began to glow and then shifted into plush sofa chairs. He was in Starbucks, and Phil was sitting across from him with caramel macchiato covering his upper lip. Phil brought out his tongue, his eyes dazzlingly bright, but then instead of licking it away he said, “Maybe we can’t talk to each other anymore. Maybe we’re burnt out.”

“Are you crazy?” Dan shouted, but it was too late, the scene melted away, and then they were on the Manchester Eye. But Phil wasn’t looking at him. He wouldn’t turn around, and the moment when they were supposed to kiss came and went. And then they were in the snow, Dan lying on his back, his arms tracing paths through the cold mush. “Come look at this,” Phil said, giddily dragging Dan up from his snow angel.

“What is it?” Dan asked, breathless from the cold and the dry air and the dozen kisses Phil had placed on his cheeks earlier. Phil pointed to his right, and written there in the snow was the word _FOREVER_. “Did we really say that?” Phil asked, and now his face looked older, more afraid. “What does forever even mean?”

“I don’t know,” Dan admitted.

“Then what are we even doing right now? What is the fucking point?”

“The point is that I love you,” Dan yelled, screamed into the air, but Phil just stared at him, face blank. “Are you crazy?” Phil asked him after a moment of silence. “Are you crazy?”

“Yes,” Dan gasped, “I’m going crazy. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what we’re doing. It’s so much at once, Phil.” But then Phil was gone, one blink later, and Dan felt terribly cold. Still, the sun beat down on him, melting the snow, melting the entire world.

\- - -

Dan woke up in a cold sweat, his duvet wrapped around him in a way that made him feel a little too trapped for comfort. He hurled the blanket off of him and sat up a little too fast, causing his vision to swim. The sun was so goddamn bright, and his head ached with echoes of Phil’s voice, fading into the distance.

They hadn’t spoken since their argument after the taxi ride, and it was getting even harder to act normal in front of Adam. If he noticed anything weird, he didn’t mention it, but Dan feared this was because he already knew something that they had never told him, and he hated the idea that the truth radiated off of them, leaked into the space between them and communicated itself to other people without words.

In fact, Adam seemed determined to limit the amount of time in which it was required for any of them to actually have a conversation. During breakfast, he suggested they watch Buffy. After that he wanted to play video games, and this went into the late afternoon. When Phil mentioned that his stomach was starting to rumble, Adam jumped in with, “We should order pizza. Meatlover’s special, with a thick crust. And while we eat we should watch _The Avengers_.”

“Let’s do it!” Phil said. “I love the Avengers.” He got up from the sofa chair and then hovered for a moment, mid-step, before turning towards Dan. “Do you want to do that, Dan?”

Dan looked up at Phil, which hurt his neck a little since he was thoroughly sunk into the sofa crease. He had ducked out of the video game playing after a couple rounds due to his stomach feeling sort of upset. Now he was one hour deep into a Wikipedia quest that had started with him researching common causes of stomach aches. He had ended up looking at pages about irritable bowel syndrome, which talked more in depth about all the things one could do to upset their body. He wanted to add his own cause to the lists: _Deep and pulsing stomach pain due to the pure nervousness and angst that comes from knowing that one’s secrets can be revealed online without even saying them out loud. Or, in the case of the video, saying them out loud without knowing anyone would ever hear them._

Phil was still looking at him, waiting for a response, and he realized that the silence had dragged on a little awkwardly long. “Uh,” Dan said, clearing his throat. “I’m not super hungry. And I’ll probably keep using my laptop, but you guys can throw _The Avengers_ on if you want.”

Phil looked away quickly, no doubt sensing the oncoming sass in Dan’s voice, but Adam laughed. “Not hungry? That’s not like you at all.”

“Well, it is now,” Dan snapped, even though he knew it was a bad idea. (“So, silence,” he had said to Phil, so full of disdain, even know though he knew that it might end up being the best policy. But he didn’t want to let Phil win this, because he hated that Phil was omitting such an important detail: Should the silence be between them, or them and the world?

“Yes,” Phil had said in a tone of voice that signaled he was moving on, like an abrupt period at the end of an incomplete sentence. “Where do you think little Superman should go?” he’d asked, and Dan knew he should keep pushing in that moment, that if he didn’t it would only get harder, but he didn’t.)

Adam stood up from the sofa, and at first Dan thought he too was ending this conversation, but then he turned and stood squarely in front of Dan. “What’s up, mate?” he asked. “Look, I know that YouTube can be stressful, but it shouldn’t be making you this cranky. You’re acting like you’re PMSing or something. Has me being here made you extra stressed?”

Suddenly, he felt terrible. This wasn’t Adam’s fault. “No, I’m fine, really,” he said, sitting up a little straighter and trying to smooth out his voice.

“Yeah, Dan’s fine. Don’t worry about it, Adam. You’re our guest.”

Adam turned to Phil and shrugged, “I’m trying to not make whatever’s going on any more awkward, mate. I feel bad enough that I’m crashing in your space.”

“No, it’s been great,” Phil said. “I think it’s been cool seeing what it would be like to have a third roommate, and especially one who’s also a youtuber. I was even thinking that maybe we should get a third one.” Phil wasn’t posing this as a question. Dan suddenly didn’t feel so terrible about hating Adam.

Adam smiled, “Worried about paying rent, aren’t you?”

“Until we know for sure about the BBC, it is a little tight.”

“I don’t think we could get another roommate anyways,” Dan said. “We have too much miscellaneous shit.” He stood up then, dropping his laptop on the couch behind him with enough force to cause Phil to wince. “I don’t think I want pizza. I’m just going to make myself some toast.” Then he left the lounge and walked to the kitchen, his brain spinning with Phil’s words, what was practically invitation to Adam to move in with them, and the image mixing with a still-fading one of him and Phil standing amidst the melting snow.

He grabbed a glass and went to pour himself some Ribena when he realized that Phil had followed him into the kitchen. “Okay, Dan,” he said, his eyes still slightly downcast. “I’m sorry.”

“You mean for freaking out on me yesterday and then running away _again_?”

He refused to face Phil, because he was feeling angry and righteous, but he could hear Phil audibly sigh even over the sound of him pouring Ribena. “Let’s forget about what I said yesterday. I don’t want you to be acting this way while Adam’s here.”

“Are you serious? You basically said you wanted to break up with me yesterday. I think I have the right to be a bit of a dick.”

“Dan, you’ve constantly been a bit of a dick, non-stop since the whole video fiasco happened.”

“Well at least I’ve consistently been a dick, you’ve just been majorly inconsistent and confusing.”

“I think what we’re doing is working fine.”

“How is it working fine? I don’t feel fine!”

“And you think I do? I’ve hated every second of this. Feeling unsafe, feeling out of control. I don’t like feeling like I’m not in control, you know that.” Phil stopped talking then and waited, like he expected Dan to say something. When he didn’t, he continued, “ My mum always says that sometimes when you’re sick you’re gonna feel worse before you start to feel better. So it feels terrible right now. But maybe that means we’re gonna feel better after we’ve adjusted to the changes.”

“What changes?”

“With us, with how we operate.”

“Why does anything have to change? This is about whether we tell people about our relationship, not what it really is.”

“So it’s about the video.”

“No. I mean, yes, it is! But it’s not just about that.”

“Well still, I think we should follow my mum’s advice.”

Dan groaned. “You can’t just whip out some quirky advice from you mum whenever things are bad. Even your mum’s advice can be stupid sometimes, you know.”

“Hey, shut up,” Phil said, and his voice stayed deceptively calm, because even in his most angry state Phil would always remember Adam, would never want to impose any of this on him, any more than Dan already had. “Fine, let’s talk about the video now. Or whatever you think this is really about.”

Dan almost yelled back at Phil the answer to that non-question, of what he really thought the problem was, of what he was really feeling. But then he stopped, and shut his jaw tightly, his hand already clenched into a fist in his back pocket. He didn’t feel like answering, he felt like getting back at Phil. “No,” he said calmly. “I’m going to home for the rest of the weekend.”

Now Phil’s mouth dropped open and then shut suddenly. “What?”

“Yeah. My mum’s been really wanted to see me since we moved, as you know, so I think I’m going to go visit her.”

“You’ve been avoiding her calls for months.”

“I’ve taken a few of them actually.” Phil’s face changed, molding first into a look of shock and then happiness. He nodded, as if to say _Good, I’m glad you did the responsible thing_ , but Dan knew he had hurt him with not sharing that information. Why he hadn’t ever told him, he couldn’t pinpoint at that moment. “What,” he said, his voice a little biting, because apparently once you start being mean it’s so easy to continue, “I can’t run away too? You’re the only person who gets to do that?”

“I wasn’t running away,” Phil said softly. “I said that. I actually needed space. It’s different.”

“But you didn’t get any better. That weekend didn’t do anything.”

“Because we haven’t actually talked.”

“Well who’s fault is that now?”

Dan’s voice had risen a little bit, and Phil reached forward to touch his arm, his eyes snapping to the left as a non-verbal reminder that Adam was still here. Even though Dan knew Phil was doing it stop Dan from embarrassing himself, it made him feel even more irritated.

“We can still talk while Adam’s here, you know,” Phil whispered. “Just, softly, and after he goes to bed.”

Dan pulled back. “No, we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not how we operate around people we’re not out to.”

“We made that rule because we didn’t want to face any pressure yet. But we’re facing pressure now, so why not?” Phil was still standing rather close to him, his hands reached out towards Dan like he was waiting for him to come back in. “And by the way,” he said, his voice getting even softer now, “I’m out to Adam. He knows that I like guys. I could like you. That wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to him.”

“I- you’re out to him?” He stepped further back. Out of all the things that had been said, that made his heart ache the most, in a way he couldn’t explain. “You being out to him and us being out to him isn’t the same thing.”

“I know.”

“So I’ve been fighting to defend us, because you refuse to talk about and I think you’re so hurt, but you go and tell people like Adam?”

“Adam’s a friend. And I never asked you to say any of that stuff.”

“Right, because you’d rather be silent.”

“I just don’t want us to have to worry about this anymore. If we’re silent, it will go away.”

“I’m going away, for the weekend.”

“Dan,” Phil said, and it wasn’t loud or desperate, and soft and confused, and somehow that made Dan feel worse, like with every move he was taking he was stepping farther and farther into the bad side of this fight. “You’re making it really a fight now. Maybe we weren’t doing well before, but we were still being mature, or at least trying to be. This is just mean.”

 _Fight_ – he hated using that word in his head, hated how stupid and dramatic it sounded. And yet, he knew it, he knew Phil was right, but he kept walking anyways. He walked back to the lounge, where Adam was still sitting on the couch, his legs crossed, and his eyes focused on the back of a DVD he had removed from their bookcase. “Hey. Change of plans, I’ll be leaving soon to go home for the rest of the weekend.”

“Everything okay?”

“No,” he said, and then added, “Family emergency.” Adam nodded like he understood, even though Dan knew he probably knew what was really up, and with fumbling fingers he pressed his mother’s contact on his phone.

“Daniel,” she answered after three rings. Dan breathed steadily as he walked up the stairs to his room.

“Hi, mum,” he said. He could feel tears developing at the back of his throat. “I need help. Can I come home for the weekend?”

“Yes, you can,” she said immediately, and that made him actually start crying. After everything, after all of Dan’s shitty reactions, it was still a yes with zero hesitations. “I’ll get your room ready right now,” she said.

“I’m so sorry I’m so shit.” He knew his mum could hear he was crying, and he sunk down onto his bed, hating the blankness of his room, hating the black-and-white checkered bedspread that was the monochrome twin of Phil’s.

“I know. I forgive you. Sometimes, you really are harder on yourself than anyone else.

\- - -

A few hours later, when Dan was on a train home, he started to regret his decision to leave. But he was angry, and hurting, and his head had been playing a continuous loop of the word _forever_ with an intermittent interruption of a mocking laughter. How foolish he was to have felt so confident in this, he thought, in them. And then he realized – of course Phil no longer felt as strongly about forever, because he was a fucking ass. So, really, it was no surprise. He had dug his own fucking grave.

He realized with a jolt, halfway through the journey, that the last time he’d been on a train like this was with Phil, when they’d moved to London. That seemed so far way. He desperately wanted the feeling of Phil next to him, of Phil’s head on his shoulder. He felt shaky from his fight with Phil, shaky with the fact that his sexuality felt like something that had grown into its own monster and run away from him. But he also felt like if Phil was there and put his head on his shoulder, he’d welcome it. (“Don’t let me sleep on your shoulder,” Phil had said to him halfway through that train ride, when he’d started to get drowsy. “If I do, just push me off or something.” And when his head had fallen onto his shoulder, Dan had stared at it, liking the feeling of its weight settled there, holding him down in a chaotic world. He’d been a bit hesitant to keep his promise, even though he had in the end.)

When he arrived at his house, he fiddled with the lock for a few minutes, cursing at the rusty knob, softly shut the door behind him after the ruckus he’d made getting in, and then allowed himself to fall face first onto the living room couch.

“Welcome home,” said a voice. It was his mum, and he lifted his face up from the cushion to see that she was sitting in the sofa chair to his right.

“I didn’t think you’d be awake.”

“With the racket you made trying to get in, no way would I be asleep. You probably woke your father.”

Dan groaned, and plopped his head back down onto the couch. “Sorry.” After a few moments of silence, he asked, “Why didn’t you just come let me in?”

“Seemed like you were determined to do it yourself, no matter what kind of hole you ended up digging yourself into in the process.” His mum’s voice was kind, yet also a little bit biting. It made Dan chuckle. He laid face down like that, contemplating what he could possibly say back, when he felt the weight of someone sit down by his feet. He scooted his butt towards the back of the couch so that there was a larger area of space in front of his hips, and he felt the weight shift to the open spot. Soft fingers began to sift through his hair, which had curled up a bit in the heat.

“How are you doing, Daniel? Off in big London town like some kind of adult.”

Dan groaned, louder this time. “I’m not an adult.”

His mum laughed. “Of course you’re not.”

“I’m a fucking failure.”

Her fingers left his hair to slide down the back of his neck and loop around his shoulders. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that. But I also don’t even know what’s wrong.”

“It’s like the world is moving too fast and I have nothing to hold on to.”

“You have Phil,” she said, and Dan realized then how strange it was to hear his mum talk about Phil, mention him as an anchor in his life. Because he was, but he had come in and taken up a bounty of love that he had never even given to his family, that had simply sat inside him waiting for some sort of fulfillment. And he had never really told his parents about it. There was so much that he’d decided to not share after they’d been so angry with him visiting Phil in the first place. But his mum seemed open now to the facts of their relationship. It was Dan who didn’t know how to move forward. “But Phil is part of the problem, isn’t he?” His mum’s voice was soft, and he settled back further into her arm.

“Phil is never a problem. We’re both just really stressed. And we’ve been fighting a lot recently.”

“And that’s why you’re here?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes being an adult has less to do with age and more with maturity.”

He had never thought of his mum as someone who gave out her own smart idioms. In fact, he’d always been jealous of Phil’s mum skill to do that, amongst many other things. But he maybe he just hadn’t been paying enough attention.

“What happened, with the video? Tell me.”

“It was uploaded to Phil’s youtube channel, and it was accidentally un-privated. And it’s made our relationship something that can be attacked. Which is different than how it was before, you know? I always knew that being a youtuber meant I was putting myself up for attack. And I think Phil’s known this too. But it’s different when it’s not either of us, and yet both of us. I don’t know, that doesn’t make sense.”

“It does. It sounds like you two need to talk about it.”

“We do talk about it. It’s just never clear what exactly we’re talking about. That’s the problem. We’ll speak vaguely, and assume we know what the other means, because we normally do. But all of a sudden it’s like we’re not on the same page. I don’t know. It’s all moving too fast…. I don’t even know what I’m saying. I used to think the problem was that we’re closeted, that we don’t want people to know. Now I’m thinking it’s because it’s not theirs to know about.”

“Then tell Phil that. Make time slow down.” His mum went back to petting his head, her fingers delicately parsing out his hairs, and the feeling of it started to soothe him. He let out a breath and tried to focus on relaxing his muscles, sinking even further into the couch. It was late, he was exhausted, and just a couple hours ago he’d been arguing with Phil, which made his heart ache. Neither of them wanted to be fighting, and for the past three months he’d been telling himself all of the weirdness between them was on Phil. But he was just as guilty. It was a weird feeling, accepting guilt. It made him feel both heavier and lighter.

“By the way,” his mum said, her voice a little bit louder now, back to her normal tone. “Chelsea is getting married tomorrow. Do you remember her?”

The spell on Dan’s muscles was suddenly lifted, and he rose into a seated position. “Yeah, she was in my class for years.”

“Her wedding is tomorrow. And you’re going.”

Dan whined, “Mum.”

She smiled at him, and he could tell then this had been the plan from the moment he’d called. “No complaints. You came here asking for help. I say you need to get dressed, go outside, and communicate with someone who isn’t Phil or faceless people on the internet. It could do you some good.”

\- - -

The wedding was going to be absolute torture. Dan could tell this as soon as he walked into the tent, which had been pitched in the middle of a public park couple blocks down from his house. The surrounding area was full of people, a lot of whom Dan recognized as classmates from high school or friends of his parents. But worst of all, there was no Phil for him to create his own little world with. He was stuck standing alone, which made him look even more like a loser and a prime target for awkward conversation.

His mum and dad were standing in the middle of one of the rows of chairs, chatting to a couple that Dan thought used to be their neighbors. His brother had come too, but he couldn’t see him. In fact, he hadn’t even spoken to him since he’d arrived home. He’d retired to his room soon after his conversation with his mum last night, and this morning he’d stayed in there until it was time to leave.

(“Got enough sleep?” his mum had asked as they all piled out of the house and stood in their front yawn, itching already at the mosquito bites that were beginning to form. She side-eyed him as she asked it in a way that made him bow his head to avoid her gaze.

“Yes. I’m fine.” He realized later that he’d answered a question she hadn’t asked. But so many people had been asking him that recently that he felt it was always there, the lining of every sentence and the echo of every question.)

He ended up drifting towards them, feeling like if he was going to be here he’d rather talk to his parents than strangers. This meant that he was subjected to several embarrassing questions about his job, but he was happy to talk about it if it meant keeping the questions away from other parts of his life. One of the adults who came up to speak with his parents asked him about Phil, but he managed to brush it off by talking about their most recent meetings with the BBC. He was almost happy that he hadn’t spoken to his brother yet, and likely wouldn’t all weekend, because their last conversation still burned in his memory.

(“So are you gay now?” his brother had said over the phone, and his tone hadn’t at all been disapproving or hostile, but Dan hated the way he’d added the word _now_. It felt accusatory, letters at the end of a sentence accusing him of hiding, or lying, or something even worse.

“I don’t really want to talk about it at the moment.”

“Why? It’s out there.”

“Yes, but I didn’t choose for it to be out there, and want to choose when I talk about it.” Dan’s words were coming out a little breathless, as they often did when he tried to talk about the leak. It was the side effect of him feeling completely out of control while trying to pretend that he knew exactly what he was doing. “Have mum and dad seen it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Could you do me a favor and make sure they don’t?”

It was silent on his brother’s end for a while. “Dan, I think they could help,” he said, and his voice sounded so earnest and young.

“Maybe,” he said, his mind racing to think of the right words to make his feelings clear, when suddenly a horrible thought came to him. “Shit, you’re gonna show it to them.”

“If it could help–”

“No! Listen– please–“ Dan had said, but even then he knew it was too late, that he wasn’t going to be able to find the right words to communicate what he was feeling, just like he had failed to do with Phil, and would fail to do with his parents. And he hated how weak he’d sounded at the end, his voice cracking as he said _please_.)  

After about an hour of this painful chatting, everyone settled into their seats and the ceremony began. It had been a while since Dan had gone to a wedding, but he found himself quickly recognizing the practices and phrases of the church he’d sometimes gone to with his grandma. Chelsea and her family had also attended that church, and while Dan had never been very close with her at school, she had been one of the familiar faces that he’d sometimes gravitated to during post-service gatherings.

During the ceremony, Dan’s focus shifted in and out of his own thoughts. Before he realized, the proceedings were mostly finished, and the couple was reciting their vows.

“I promise to cherish and respect you, to care and protect you, to comfort and encourage you, and stay with you, for all of our remaining days,” Chelsea said, her voice loud and bold while a softness shone in her eyes. “For infinity.”

“Yes. For longer than that,” her fiancé echoed. “For infinity times infinity.”

Dan’s spine straightened. His mind went on hyper-alert, replaying in his head the exchange that had just happened and looking between the bride and groom. He stayed this way, feeling sort of not himself as the groom kissed the bride and they embraced and the crowd cheered.

He didn’t think of himself as someone who was afraid of commitment, but the way they’d said that word made him feel nauseous. Had that been what Phil heard when Dan said forever? Instead of check-ins and supports and adjustments had he heard a life sentence, a skin-tight mental armor that he’d soon grow out of, infinity?

\- - -

The reception was at an Indian restaurant a little farther away than the park. Dan walked back home with his parents and brother, and it was a walk mostly filled with silence, except for when his mum put his hand on his shoulder and said “Thanks for doing this.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and then immediately felt guilty about the fact that he had resented everything about this outing so much if his mum considered it to be some kind of favor.

“Why don’t I get thanked?” his brother whined, and for the first time since coming home Dan turned to look at him. His brother had dressed in khakis that were clearly already too short for him and a button-down shirt that was severely wrinkled. He met Dan’s eyes and immediately looked a little sad.

“Because you’re still a kid and have no rights,” their dad joked, slapping his brother on the shoulder. Dan looked away.

When they got to their house Dan’s mum instructed that they should all use the bathroom and get into the car. This took ten minutes, after which they took off for the restaurant. Dan took out his cell phone and stared at the screen. He and Phil hadn’t texted since he left. He felt like the blank lock screen was mocking him, saying in a little high voice _Look what you’ve done,_ and then _infinity times infinity–_

He put his phone back into his pocket. He didn’t want to think about that.

When they arrived at the restaurant, his mum pulled him aside and whispered, “If you want to just sit in a corner and sulk the whole night, I can’t stop you. But please at least say hi to Chelsea first.”

He nodded, and then looked ahead at the door they were walking through. It led into a room with very dimmed lighting, which Dan’s eyes struggled to adjust to. The room had a strong scent that Dan recognized as sandalwood. He followed his family through the main dining area and into a larger room in the back. A dance floor had been set up in the middle of the room with tables surrounding it. There weren’t many people there yet, but those who had arrived were sitting and chatting. He spotted the bride and groom standing near the DJ table that had been set up in the back. _Might as well get this over with now_ , he thought, and walked towards them.

“Hey,” he said once he was close to them, although they hadn’t noticed him approaching, and Chelsea whipped around in shock and almost slipped. _Great_ , _you’re a real idiot, Dan_. “Congratulations. I don’t know if you remember me, but we went to school together. I’m Dan.”

“Yes, of course,” Chelsea smiled. “I’m surprised you came. My parents told me you’re famous now.”

He attempted a laugh. “Not really. I make videos on the internet. Er, not creepy videos, but on YouTube.”

That made Chelsea really laugh, and he relaxed a bit. “Do you remember Stephen?” she asked, gesturing to her now-husband. Dan did remember Stephen, as him and Chelsea had started dating back when they were all in school together. Stephen and Dan shook hands and Stephen said “Nice to see you again” and then Dan awkwardly stuck his hand back into his pockets. Stephen was almost as tall as Phil, and had ashy hair with a reddish tint that reminded Dan of the color that would sneak into Phil’s roots before a re-dye. (Dan would look out for it, because as much as he loved Phil’s black hair he loved the concept of this little piece of pre-Dan Phil sneaking out into the world. “I like your natural hair color,” he said once when they were in bed together, his fingers softly stroking the coarse strands.

Phil shrugged. “It doesn’t suit me.”

“I might agree. But I still like it. I like picturing that other you. Because then I start to wonder if maybe there are other yous, all over the world, and maybe one day when I’m traveling I’ll run into one.”

Phil had laughed and tackled Dan so that he was now hovering over him. “You don’t really believe that,” he said softly, and then leaned down to kiss his neck. No, he didn’t really believe that, but it was a way to comfort himself about the fact that Phil was slowly taking over his heart, and soon he wouldn’t be able to look at any man without thinking of Phil.)

There had been a bit of an awkward silence, and Stephen stepped towards Chelsea to kiss her on the cheek. “I’m going to go see how setting up the bar is going.”

“Okay,” Chelsea responded, and then she turned to smile at Dan. “Did you bring a date?” she asked.

The question made Dan’s stomach lurch, _but there’s no way she could know anything_ , he reminded himself, _is there_? He just needed to stop letting these goddamn pauses happen in conversations. “Err, no,” he said, and then he gestured towards Stephen with his head. “You guys have been together for a while, haven’t you? When did you guys start dating again?”

Chelsea smiled. “Sixth form.”

“Shit.” Dan blanched slightly, worried he’d offended her. But Chelsea only laughed.

“We decided a long time ago that we’d be together forever.”

“Ah,” he said. He found a way to exit the conversation soon after that. An uneasy feeling was rising in his stomach.

To his great despair, his mum had gathered a crowd of eager chatters around their assigned table, so even he wanted to sit down he couldn’t escape. Still, he was tired of standing in the corner, so he sat down in his chair and pulled out his phone again. Still nothing. _Notice how you don’t text him, even though you could_ , a voice said in his head. But he couldn’t text Phil. What would he say? His thoughts were all jumbled and chaotic, a mix of _I’m sorry_ s and _You asshole_ s. He didn’t think anything would come out right at the moment.

Dan sat in silence as his mum chatted, and thankfully no one asked him many questions. In the middle of a conversation about this year’s flu season, The Front Bottoms burst out at full volume, and his mum sent him a glare.

“Ah, shit – sorry,” Dan fumbled. “I forgot to silence my phone.”

His mum put a hand up, and he knew that now that his ringer had gone off he might as well take the call. He was a bit thankful for a distraction anyways. That is, until he looked down at his phone screen. It was Phil. He stumbled off into the corner of the room, took a deep breath, and pressed the phone to his ear.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” said Phil. His voice sounded too light and airy, like he was trying to sound casual. “Uh…sorry, this is super weird, I know. But what kind of milk do we get?”

Dan almost laughed, but his mouth felt a little clammy. “2 percent,” he said.

“Cool. I had totally forgotten, and I spent twenty minutes staring at the milk display like an idiot, every now and then wandering around the store wondering what to do, until I realized that I should just, um, call you.”

“You’re right, that probably is the better idea,” Dan said, and he leaned his head back against the wall.

Phil sighed. “Look, I have been a dick too. When you get back, I’d love for us to talk about it.”

“It?”

“The video. The leak. Or whatever you want to talk about. I don’t care. Just talk.” He actually thought he might cry a bit, and really didn’t want to do that in public. He hadn’t thought that he and Phil had broken up, but he realized then he hadn’t known how they were going to move forward, because this was unlike anything they’d ever dealt with before. They’d mastered normal fights, and getting pissed at each other for doing something dumb like dropping the egg carton once they got back from the store, and not wanting to speak to each other once their normal quirks got on each other’s nerves. But they’d never had to handle something like _this,_ some big interruption to their lives.

“That sounds good.”

“I’m sorry I panicked after we had that taxi ride,” Phil said, and Dan could sense he was in that stage where once he started talking he just kept going. “I could feel that things were changing, and I don’t like change. You know that. But I think maybe we can hold on to each other as things change. And if one of us loses hold, then the other will likely still have a strong grip, and we can help each other hold on. And then we can sort of change together. Does that make sense?”

They spent a couple moments listening to each other’s breathing before Dan said, “It’s a bit abstract, but yes. Did your mum say that to you?”

Phil laughed guiltily. “She might have.”

Dan hesitated a moment, and then said, “You know I love your mum, right?”

“Yes. And she loves you. And so do I.” Phil’s voice lingered slightly before he hung up.

Dan kept replaying that last sentence for the rest of the night, as he sat alone at the table, as he watched people dance, as he was forced through more conversation. They didn’t say I love you often, as it had been considered a given between them for so long, and the romance of it had worn off long ago. But sometimes Dan wished it was a larger part of their vocabulary. He could think of a dozen reasons why it wasn’t, but he didn’t want to think of those things tonight. He just wanted to watch the happy couple dance and hear Phil tell him he loved him.

But no matter how much he thought of Phil, he couldn’t stop the couple’s vows from playing in the back of his mind, over and over again: _Infinity. Infinity. Infinity times infinity times infinity times infinity._

\- - -

(One night, in Manchester, Phil had told Dan that he’d done the math.

“What math?” Dan had asked.

“Of you and me.”

“And what answer did you come to?”

“841,” Phil said, and then he kissed Dan’s forehead. Dan thought he might blush so hard that his face would implode.

“Wow,” he said softly. “That’s a lot of days.” They kissed a couple times, until Dan worked up the courage to speak again. “And it’s felt like nothing,” he said, bracing his hand against Phil’s shoulder so that he could look at him. “It’s so easy to be with you.”

“I agree. You’re like…my brother. But not. Because that would be weird.”

Dan laughed, loud and bold, reveling in the knowledge that no one else was in these walls to hear it but them. “Eww, Phil.”

Phil giggled. “I didn’t want to freak you out by saying ‘soulmate.’”

Dan fell silent, and spent a minute tracing the hairs on Phil’s chest. “I don’t think I believe in soulmates,” he said softly.”

“Of course you don’t,” Phil responded in a way that said, _I know you do, though. You might not want to admit it, not to me or to yourself, but you have to know. This is something different, you and I.)_

\- - -

They were so behind in their filming schedule. That was the first thing Phil said to Dan when he came through their front door. It was almost midnight on Sunday, and Dan had spent the entire train ride trying not to think of what he was going to say to Phil when he got home. Him and Phil had known each other long enough that they had a natural rhythm, but nothing corroded that rhythm like doubt and overthinking. Some of their worst fights had happened after Dan had agonized over what to say. He didn’t want to overthink this. And, he suspected that Phil didn’t want him to either, which was why he gave Dan a big smile when he opened the door and said, “Welcome home, you spoon. We’re really behind.”

“I know,” Dan said, dropping his bag to the ground. “I was thinking about it on the train ride back,” he said, which was a lie, but a better thing to say than his trying-not-to-overthink saga.

“Want to do an all-nighter?” Phil asked. He meant a filming all-nighter. It was something they did sometimes, when they felt really wired. It was one of Dan’s favorite things to do, because something about filming with Phil when the rest of the world was asleep made him feel safe and calm in a way that nothing else could.

“What about Adam?”

Phil shrugged. “He’s gone to his room.” Then he gestured Dan to follow him to his own room, and they sat down in front of his chest of props.

“I’m thinking we should start with the Super Amazing Project. The preview for the new season will be going up soon, and I have a lot of ideas for the first episode. And then we need to do another Phil is Not on Fire, and also don't you still need to film a video for this week?” he said, and Dan watched him closely as he talked, his eyes focused on the contents of the chest, wondering if he was avoiding the issue again, if their conversation on the phone had just been a dream. He leaned over and placed his hand on Phil’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he said softly. Phil turned to look at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how behind we’d get with us not filming these last two weekends.”

Phil smiled and gently passed his hand over the top of Dan’s hair, which was only half-straightened, and down to his shoulder. “It’s okay. You were distracted. We’ve both been distracted. Now we can both do better.”

Dan couldn’t help but smile, because sometimes when Phil talked he sounded like he was running a couple’s therapy session. All the nervousness he’d felt on the train ride here evaporated away, and he decided to just trust in this moment, in the resilience of their rhythm.

So they picked out props to put together their best Secret Agent costumes, and laughed as they toyed with the idea of wearing sparkly boas. As they worked together, and the heavy feeling over them faded away, Dan thought about how the problem was that Phil spent so much time trying to return them to normalcy. But Dan didn’t mind it as much this time, because it didn’t feel like procrastination. It felt like a necessity, like a hot shower after a long cry or a cup of tea after getting caught in a rain storm.

 

\- - -  

At breakfast the next morning, which Dan groggily began preparing at 2 PM, Adam greeted him with a small smile. “How was your trip, mate?”

Dan started slightly at the sound of his voice, having partly forgotten that he was here. Then he immediately felt guilty for that. Adam was their friend, and they had invited him to stay with them before everything had gotten all messy. It wasn’t his fault any of this was happening. Dan turned around and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Good,” he said.

Adam raised his eyebrow. “You certainly seem resistant to start the day.”

Dan nodded, and massaged his head a little bit. He had a headache, almost as if he had a hangover, even though he hadn’t been drinking. All this stress was taking a toll on him. “Phil and I stayed up all night filming.”

“So it’s all good between you two?”

Dan stopped, mid-turn. Adam’s voice had been so casual as he spoke. So he knew. _Of course he knows, you idiot, you were so rude to him before you left_.

“Yeah. Yeah. Moving to London has been a bit stressful, but I’m guessing it would be for anyone, right?” He turned and forced himself to meet Adam’s eyes, giving him a little smile. Adam looked away, though.

“Sure it would,” he said. Then he paused and ran his fingers across the kitchen countertop. Dan followed Adam’s fingers with his gaze, and noticed how many crumbs were scattered across the surface. He needed to get his act together and clean. “It seems like what’s stressful for you guys though aren’t normal things,” Adam said.

“What do you mean?”

Adam was still looking down, and Dan also looked down at his feet. Because he knew what Adam meant, he just didn’t want to say it. It was the thing that he never wanted to say, because there were too many words, too many possible terms, and he hadn’t settled on one yet. He didn’t know how to describe something that he loved so much without the right words for it. “I want to help you out, Dan. I don’t like seeing you guys so miserable. But I also don’t want to say something that you don’t want me to say.”

Dan pushed his half-made breakfast to the side, certain now that he wasn’t going to be eating it any time soon. His stomach churned with the many antagonistic feelings coming to head within his organs. He knew what Adam meant, of course he did, because he hadn’t just but a blockade on his own words about it, but on everyone else’s words. And that was nice, most of the time, because it was none of their business. But he couldn’t ask for help about something that no one could talk about. Dan took a deep breath, steadied himself. “Phil and I are dating. We have been for about three years.”

Adam smiled. “Congratulations,” he said softly, and the tone of his voice sounded so sincere that Dan burst out laughing.

“Does that deserve to be congratulated?”

“Uh, yeah! Relationships are so fucking tough, man. My last relationship ended because I got concerned that I was too into them too soon, and so I just stopped telling them how I felt. Then they thought that meant I didn’t have any feelings for them, so they broke up with me. Staying in any sort of relationship is hard, never mind for three years, and never mind trying to keep it a secret.”

Dan laughed along with Adam’s sad laugh, but the upset feeling in the pit of his stomach was increasing. He suddenly felt like he just wanted to talk to Phil. “Sometimes it feels like it’s never been a secret,” he said.

Adam nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Dan waited for a moment, and then said, “Seemed like you were going to give more advice.”

“I don’t think I’m qualified to,” Adam said with a shrug. “But like I said, three years is incredible. For anyone. And I think you guys have weathered unusual circumstances.”

 _Unusual circumstances_. That description stung slightly, and Dan bit his lip. “Because we’re gay?” he asked, even though that wasn’t the right word, even though he didn’t know if there was a right word.

“Not just because of that. You’ve got a million people who want to know everything about your relationship. And the average person does not deal with that. I can’t even imagine.” Dan didn’t respond, but just stared down at the piece of toast he had made. It was cold now. “If you need to ever talk about it with anyone,” Adam continued, “anyone besides Phil, I mean. I’m here.”

Dan smiled. “Thanks.” And he really was. He felt a bit warm, now, thinking that maybe he and Phil weren’t completely alone in this, that maybe it wasn’t them and then a whole mean chaotic world. Adam opened up his arms and stepped forward slightly, suggesting a hug, and Dan went for it. He stopped himself from doing some sort of dumb masculine back-slap, and wrapped his arms around Adam’s shoulders. “And I think Phil is just trying to get by as well, you know,” Adam whispered, close to his ear.

“Yeah. Everyone’s been saying that.”

\- - -

Dan re-made his breakfast at 4PM, after he had retreated back to his room for a quick cry and freak out about what the hell he was doing. Sometimes it sunk with him the cold and bare reality of him and Phil. Two boys with a four year age difference who had met online and then met in real life and then kept meeting in real life and then moved in with each other and now still live with each other. Sometimes, Dan didn’t know what scared him more – the fact that he had been with Phil for three years now, or the fact that he didn’t mind that he had been with Phil for three years now.

When he finally calmed down, he emerged back into the inside world and made himself a new piece of toast. He ate it while tucked into his sofa crease, with Adam curled up on the opposite couch, ferociously playing with his game boy. They sat in amicable silence, with Adam giving him a smile sometimes, and Dan thought about how stupid he had been to ever feel threatened by Phil’s relationship with him. He was the one who had been living with him for three years, and the one who Phil wanted to keep living with. At least, as far as he knew.

His last thought before drifting into a light sleep was that Phil hadn’t emerged from his room all day. Was he giving him space? Had he snuck out before Dan woke up and was now pacing the streets? Was he nervously walking into grocery stores and buying things they didn’t need because he didn’t know what else to do? Was he–

Dan was awoken by the feeling of lips pressing to his forehead. He opened his eyes and shot upward, banging his forehead into Phil’s nose.

“Ow!” Phil yelled, falling back onto the other end of the couch.

“Oh, sorry–” Dan began, but then his left arm got caught under Phil’s falling body, causing his body to be twisted around in a painful way. “Ow!” he yelled, falling to his knees on the floor. He grasped his arm with his other hand and looked up at Phil, who was lying back and laughing loudly.

“Oh my god,” he wheezed. “This is what I get for trying to be romantic. You looked so peaceful and I thought, wow, that’s the first time in a while I’ve seen Dan look that peaceful.”

Dan laughed it out for a little with Phil, and then as both of their breathing started to even out he thought more about what Phil had just said. “I’m surprised I looked peaceful. I was having bad dreams.”

Phil repositioned himself slightly so that his back was against the couch arm. “Oh?”

“Yeah. Have been pretty much every night.”

Phil pulled Dan’s arm out from under him and then sort of cradled it over his legs. It was an awkward position they were in, but the touch felt soothing. “Since?” he asked quietly.

Dan focused on Phil’s fingers and took a deep breath. “Since the video leak. I feel like I’m being watched sometimes, I don’t know.”

“I don’t think it’s just the leak. Either way, our popularity has gone way up. I mean obviously those two connect, but….” Phil trailed off and shrugged. “I don’t want all of this to distract from the fact that we’re actually starting to succeed in this. Like, this has been your dream for so long.”

Dan’s knees were starting to hurt from digging into the carpet, but he didn’t want to move. He liked this position, him and Phil curling into each other with Phil still above him. It reminded them of their Manchester days, when this thing was still so precious and new. “Is it still your dream?” he asked.

The look of surprise on Phil’s face made Dan feel silly for asking. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been talking about all this film stuff and doing filming with PJ. It’s made me feel scared that you’re getting sick of this.”

Phil let go of Dan’s arm and placed his arms over his face as he leaned back further, staring at the ceiling. “I can’t believe you think that,” he heard Phil mutter, and suddenly a new feeling rushed into Dan’s stomach, one of silliness and doubt. That was how he had felt almost every time Phil had confessed one of his concerns to him, and it was scary to think they were so mentally of out of sync.

“Yes, this is still my dream,” Phil said softly. He had sat up, and reached down to pull Dan up and into his lap. Dan readjusted so that his legs were draped over Phil’s lap, and he wrapped his arms around his shoulders. “I still see a lot of opportunities in this. And interests change, it’s true. There will likely be one day that we don’t want to do this anymore. But I think we’re just getting started. And I don’t want this to change. You and I.”

Phil was speaking calmly and softly, the words just for him and Dan, and he thought he might cry. They had never tried talking about all of this before while touching, and it was changing so much about how Dan felt. They were talking, and nothing had exploded, and no one was crying, and Phil still looked calm. But Dan wasn’t sure he had the energy to go any farther. “I’m tired,” he whined, leaning his forehead against Phil’s.

Phil chuckled. “It’s 8 P.M. And you’ve been sleeping all day.”

“I know. I’m old.”

“Hardly,” Phil said through his laughs. His chest slowly stopped heaving, and he reached up to cup Dan’s cheek, pulling his head back. “When did we become this lame?”

“I think we were always this lame.” Dan smiled, and Phil leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. “Want to sleep with me tonight?” Dan asked.

Phil raised his eyebrow. “Like _sleep_ sleep, or–”

“Well, both would be fine. But I meant sleep in bed with me. I know we haven’t talked yet. But I miss you.”

Phil gave him a gentle smile and reached up to play with a stubborn curl that was sticking up from the center of his head. “I figured we needed a day of normalcy before we talked.”

As Phil spoke, Dan almost heard himself saying the words as well, because he knew he had, many times over the past few months. He sighed and dropped his head into the crook of Phil’s neck. “Sometimes I feel like we spend too much time getting back to normal, when we don’t really have a ‘normal’ anymore.”

Phil just nodded in response, and then they stayed like that for a while, bodies bending into each other, hands hovering over skin before decided that it was okay to touch more. It wasn’t sexual in nature – Dan felt too stressed for that. It was simply calming, and after a minute or two they had pressed their hands over every patch of skin accessible from their current positions, as if reassuring each other that they were really there.

When they silently parted, Phil went back into his room, and for a terrifying moment Dan thought he had decided to sleep there. But then he came pack in a pair of cookie monster pajama pants, and Dan smiled. “I hate those,” he said.

“Too bad,” Phil said, jumping over Dan’s legs to settled onto his side of the bed. “I hate how bare this room is.”

“Hey, back off. I’ve been busy.” They settled into their preferred sleeping positions, facing each other with their knees bent. Dan listened to Phil’s breathing, calm and steady. “There is this chair shaped like a butt that I’ve been looking at,” he whispered.

Phil let out a whispy laugh. “Noooo,” he whined. “Please don’t buy a butt chair.”

“Phil, you don’t understand. This is a muscular butt. Beautifully defined.”

Phil laughed, and after that they didn’t speak again. Dan had a light and fluffy feeling in his chest.

\- - -

Dan woke up early. He was mentally awake before he was physically, and for a few minutes he just stayed still and tried to breathe. He could tell that he was lying on his back, because the sunlight that streamed through the window was collecting on his eyelids, warming them.

When he did finally open his eyes, he rolled over to his side and picked up his phone to check the time. 10:10AM. Still early for him, but not too early as to cause him to be grumpy all day, or have an exhaustion headache. He set his phone down, rolled over onto his other side, and then realized that the other side of the bed was empty. Phil wasn’t there.

They had fallen asleep next to each other last night, and it had made Dan feel so calm. Even though they still had to talk, even though everything wasn’t settled, it was nice knowing that they could choose to just lie next to each other, instead of colliding like bumper cars with half-broken motors. (One night, a month ago, Dan had slipped into bed with Phil. Phil hadn’t woken up, and Dan laid there, trying to get his breathing to calm down, telling him this was okay. He sort of felt like he was doing something wrong, because he and Phil had been fighting, and he knew it wasn’t just Phil’s fault. But instead of saying anything, he’d just wanted to be lying next to Phil, to wrap himself into Phil. He wanted to bury his face in the warm smell of his pajama shirt and forget about the fact that he was failing at so many things. Phil hadn’t woken up, so he thought about wrapping his arms around him. But then, after a few minutes of him breathing softly, Phil became restless, like he was having a nightmare. Eventually, Phil started turning from side-to-side, and on one turn he spun his arm up and around and ended up slapping Dan in the face.

“Ow!” Dan had yelled, sitting up quickly, which of course woke Phil up. He hadn’t been as happy as Dan would’ve liked to find Dan there, and so he’d gone back to his own bed.)

Last night they’d slept with their bodies pressed up against each other, in their favorite spooning position. But Phil had clearly woken up before Dan and left. Or left in the middle of the night? Dan couldn’t remember now if he’d woken up in the middle of the night or not. He hated the way his heart rate suddenly jumped, like something was wrong. This didn’t mean anything was wrong. _You need to chill-out_ , he thought. _Don’t overthink_.

Dan blearily pushed himself up from the bed and grabbed a sweatshirt from the ground, which he was pretty sure was Phil’s, and pulled it over his head. The morning was cold and bright, and Dan felt like maybe this was the time that they needed to sit down and talk about everything, every moment of stress from the last few months, every moment of fear since the leak, since their understanding of their privacy, or lack of it, had been ripped away.

Phil was standing in the kitchen, a cup of tea in front of him on the counter and more water boiling in the kettle. The kitchen clock blinked _8:30AM_. Dan groaned. Phil jumped at the sound, and then tilted his head back and laughed.

“You _frightened_ me. I thought you were a burglar. Or a rabid squirrel who was coming to turn me.”

Dan laughed at Phil’s skittishness and then, trying to pretend that he wasn’t feeling nervous, said, “I don’t think rabid squirrels can turn you into anything, Phil. They can just give you rabies.”

Phil gave him a little smile, and then abandoned his tea to walk over and wrap his arms around Dan. Which was different, Dan thought. They hadn’t done anything like that in a while. But Dan _wanted_ them to do things like that, so he tried to mute his brain and relaxed into Phil’s arms. It was nice, and they stood like that for a moment, almost swaying.

“You’re up early,” Dan said eventually, softly into Phil’s ear.

“I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking of all the things I wanted to say to you,” Phil whispered.

Dan pulled back and said, “Really?”

“Yeah. There’s been so many things I’ve wanted to say to you over the past few months, but haven’t. And, you know, I’ve been worried about us. But then I realized that most of my worries were probably stemming from the fact that I wasn’t telling you all the things I wanted to tell you.”

“Something changed, when I went away for the wedding?”

Phil nodded. “I got really scared. I talked to Bryony. She told me we were both dumb.” Dan laughed, and they were still holding each other, so the laugh reverberated through Phil’s body. Phil smiled, but then drew back a bit. “Bryony told me something else. She said that they’re calling you no homo Howell online now.”

Dan pulled back a bit, startled by that. He cycled through feeling about twenty different emotions – a little anger, a little embarrassment, a little disbelief. He felt all of them quickly, and knew his face must have looked closed down, because Phil was looking at him with fear, like he had weighed whether to share this piece of information with Dan and now worried he’d made the wrong choice. So Dan took a deep breath, and decided to laugh about it. He let himself laugh, and sink back into Phil’s chest, because laughing about it was better than hiding whatever embarrassment he felt from Phil.

“I’ve made quite a statement,” he said after he’d finished laughing. Phil pulled him back to look at him, like he couldn’t believe he wasn’t freaking out. As he stared at him, Dan lifted up his hand and touch the line at the top of Phil’s forehead, letting his fingers trail down the side of his face “It probably hasn’t been the healthiest coping mechanism.”

Phil laughed, “Probably not.” Then his face fell a bit.

“What?” Dan asked.

“It’s….” Phil reached his hand up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Dan had woken up this morning with an adrenaline rush, but it was still really goddamn early. “It’s partially my fault that you were coping that way. And I hate that. I don’t want to admit that it’s partially my fault.”

“Oh,” Dan said, and then he looked at his feet, thinking maybe this would be easier for Phil if their eyes didn’t meet. He didn’t know what was happening, if this was a confession, or Phil still speaking his inner disagreements aloud. “But it’s more of my fault,” Dan said when it became clear that Phil wasn’t going to start talking again. “Me being a bitch on social media doesn’t do anything to lessen interest in our relationship. And that’s what you’ve been trying to tell me, and I didn’t listen.”

When Dan looked back at Phil, he realized that he had moved away from him and was not standing back at the counter, staring at his probably now tepid tea. They were dangerously close to talking about everything, to voicing something out loud that had been marinating deep inside both of them for months, to giving words to something that felt like it could continue to grow and become a monster, even once they had freed it from living just inside their heads. It felt both freeing and terrifying.

“I can’t talk about it like you do,” Phil said.

There it was again, _it._ Dan was really beginning to hate that vagueness, feeling like it just made things worse. “I know.”

“No, I mean I can’t bring it up in conversations between us. It’s so much harder for me, because with this, with the video, it really is mostly my fault.”

Dan paused, because he wanted to _No, it isn’t, it’s the internet’s fault_ , but he knew what train of logic Phil was using to blame himself, and he didn’t know how to dismantle it. “We couldn’t have known,” he settled for saying, although he knew it wouldn’t fix anything. Phil was staring straight ahead, but at nothing, and he looked so sad. Dan wanted to walk up to him, pull him in his arms, and bury his head in his shoulder. But then that would be the end of this conversation, and Dan feared that this was a now-or-never moment. If he wanted this to be a real conversation, then maybe it was on him as well. So he took a deep breath and said, “I know that I’ve been an ass since the leak. And I know this might sound childish, but I want to hear you say that you’ve been an ass too.”

Phil gave him a little, sad smiled. “I’ve been an ass too. I’ve messed up a lot. When the video leaked I thought I knew how to handle it. I thought, ‘I am the older person here. I am the more experienced YouTuber. I have more experience in life. I should be able to handle this.’ But then I couldn’t. And I didn’t know how to tell you that.”

“I know you struggle to talk about it, but I don’t know if I can just not talk about it.”

Phil’s eyes snapped to his. “Well,” he said, and then he smiled. His mouth widened out and his eyebrows extended upwards. He looked so exasperated that Dan had to laugh. “Maybe that can work. Maybe what I said before was stupid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Us and the world. Keeping them separate. Maybe that’s not how this should work.”

“I’ve fucking hated that idea since day one.”

“Maybe you should’ve told me that.”

“You say that like it’s so easy,” Dan said, and then Phil just looked at him, stared, and Dan tried to remember what Phil had looked like three years ago, or even just two months ago. He couldn’t really remember, but he could see that Phil looked so tired now. He looked like he was having a moment like Dan was before and, like Dan, he began to laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” Dan asked. “I know that’s like, a horrible thing for me to say.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s just easier than doing anything else.”

Dan smiled. “We must both be becoming dead inside.” Phil smiled, and then started opening up the cabinet to his left. He pulled down a mug, and Dan realized he must be making himself another cup of tea. “Can I have one too?” he asked, and Phil nodded. “You know,” he said, moving to Phil’s side, “you may have life experience, but I have relationship experience.”

“And what advice would you give me?”

“We need to communicate with each other. Which I think we’ve always been good at, but we’ve been doing it less since the video leak. And that’s made me sad. I could tell that you weren’t telling me things. So then I tried to force you to tell me things. I asked questions, cornered you. And, well, we saw how that worked out.” Phil kept making his tea: heating the water, picking out a box from their over-stuffed tea drawer, setting a tea bag into his mug. But they were still standing close to each other, shoulders-touching, so Dan knew that he must just be thinking, letting his words sink in. Still, he felt nervous, and now that he had started talking he felt like there was a dozen things he wanted to say rising up his throat. “I also had an epiphany when I was at the wedding. The couple who was getting married, they said their own vows. And in them they both said that they wanted to be together forever. More than forever, they said. Infinity. And I got really freaked out. And I thought, oh god, I said that to Phil, and here _I_ am freaked out about it. I must have sounded way too intense. No wonder you ran away.”

Now Phil turned to face him. “No, no,” he started saying, and then he stopped to put his hand on Dan’s shoulder. “What you said was fine. I–” Phil closed his eyes.

“I don’t want our relationship to be a jail sentence,” Dan continued. “Trapped together by our lack of money, trapped together by our careers, trapped together by the people who will do anything to get ahold of our personal lives. I just really don’t want it to be that way. And sometimes I feel afraid that it is.”

Phil looked straight into his eyes. “No, we’re not trapped by those things. I encountered over-enthusiastic fans before I ever met you. I learned how to deal with it. I’m not scared by them.”

“I am.”

“I don’t want you to be. I think it’s possible for you to not be. Either way, we need to accept that people are always going to want to know about our relationship, and we’re going to have to keep pushing back. And we can’t be constantly thinking about what’s already out there, otherwise we’ll drive ourselves crazy.”

Dan nodded, and then let Phil pull him in for a hug. Dan wrapped his arms all the way around his neck, pulling him as close as he could. Then he pulled back, looked straight at Phil, and said, “It’s not your fault that the video leaked. I wouldn’t lose the moment that I first saw it, even if it meant never having to experience all of this.”

Phil smiled, and traced the side of Dan’s face with his pinky. “Thanks. And I should have talked to you.”

They hugged again. Dan had a thought that he hoped Adam hadn’t woken up while they were talking and heard them, or hoped he wouldn’t come into the kitchen and see him like this. But then he reminded himself: _Calm down. You’re safe here_. “You mentioned once that you’re always calculating possible pain,” he whispered to Phil. “I do too. But it’s like a preventative measure, because I know I’ll feel hurt whenever I read a mean comment about me or you, or if people don’t listen to the radio show. And that made me realize that maybe you were right about shutting down being preventative. Maybe I was just being too dramatic in trying to make you talk when you weren’t ready.”

Dan could Phil shaking his head against his neck. They pulled back and Phil handed Dan his mug of tea. “No, I don’t think I was right,” he said. “I’m not sure that I should always been calculating pain. It’s a time sucker. It prevents me from doing other, better things.”

Dan took his mug and watched as Phil wrapped his hands around his. “Like what?”

“You just want me to say something really cheesy like, ‘loving you.’”

Dan grinned. “Yes, I do. What can I say? I’m a needy boyfriend who needs constant validation.”

“Love you.” Phil leaned over and kissed him, slow and purposeful, and Dan let himself linger in it, enjoy it.

“Love you too,” he whispered, and then Phil kissed him again.

Then, much later, after they had been sitting at the dining table in silence for almost an hour, each doing their own thing, Phil said, “You weren’t being too intense, Dan. When you said that thing about us being together forever. I’m sorry about how I reacted. It’s not that I don’t want to be with you forever. I’m not afraid – well, I’m afraid of a lot of things, but not of that.”

Dan looked up at Phil, and then at the table between them. He looked at all of their things, spread out over the table, mixed and mingling with each other. He looked at the lava lamp on the windowsill to their left, which Dan had bought Phil for his birthday last year, and the box of plushies, both his and Phil’s, sitting next to the window, still unpacked. “I understand,” he said. “It feels absolutely crazy to say we’ll be together forever.”

Phil nodded. “Fucking insane.”

\- - -

              The issue, Dan realized, was that Phil didn’t always know what to do with love. Dan thought of him as bigger and older and wiser and better than him. But sometimes he also worried about losing Dan. It wasn’t just about whether or not their relationship or circumstances were normal. Love didn’t work that way. It was relative. And sexuality was relative. And words were relative.

              (“It’s _all_ relative,” Phil said to him one night in London. It had been one of their first nights, after the Ikea trip but before their big fight.

What is?” Dan asked.

“Relationships. Or, at least, people’s understanding of other people’s relationships. Because how they see something always comes from their own experience.”

“Okay,” Dan said slowly, a little caught off guard. Phil had been sitting cross-legged on Dan’s bed, reading a book, while Dan had been playing away on his laptop. It had been over thirty minutes since they’d last spoken, and Dan wasn’t sure if this was a new conversation or one that Phil was just starting up now.

“I remember once when I was younger Martyn told me that he was in an open relationship while he was at university, like he was dating two girls at once. And that freaked me out, because I thought that meant he was deceiving and being awful to these girls. But after we spent a while talking about it I realized that both of these girls knew he was in a relationship with the other one, and they were both okay with it, as long as they knew what was going on and stuff. And I asked Martyn if he loved them, you know? And he said he wasn’t sure if he loved both of them in terms of a really serious definition of love, but there was definitely love there. But I couldn’t see that love at first.”

Dan furrowed his eyebrows, and removed his computer from his lap. “Phil, are you saying you want an open relationship?”

Phil laughed, “Are you crazy? No, I definitely couldn’t do that. But it got me thinking… I don’t know. Everything is just relative, you know? What sounds crazy to me might not sound crazy to you or crazy to Martyn, but it might sound totally crazy to my parents.” Phil stopped talking then, but Dan almost felt like he could hear him continuing in his thoughts: _Or to the millions of people interested in our lives. Or to people who haven’t even heard of us before but see our pictures on Tumblr._

“I guess,” Dan said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, because thinking about this topic made him feel incredibly nervous.

Phil was staring at him, but not really, because his eyes were glazed over and his head was clearly somewhere else. Eventually he snapped his head back down to his book and sighed.  “Sorry, that was random. The thought just popped into my head, and I felt like I needed to talk about it with someone who might also understand what I mean.”

It wasn’t until later that night, when Phil was back in his own bed, that Dan realized he had barely acknowledged Phil, had barely acknowledged what he said. He felt bad, but what else could he do? He didn’t know how to think about these things without freaking out, let alone talk about them. He laid in his bed, crying a little bit, and thought about what it meant that even though he loved Phil, even though he wanted to be able to do anything for him, he couldn’t understand something that Phil desperately wanted him to.)

\- - -

A week past, and they went back to being, for a lack of a better word, normal. Although Dan tried to stop thinking that word, tried to stop ruminating over it in his brain. They weren’t normal, they were just Dan and Phil, he decided. Not a dozen different Dan and Phils, but the unique pair. And maybe they had to be different people sometimes, in different scenarios, but that was okay. They were learning how to get by.

They tried to take more moments to just be next to each other, whether that was cuddling in bed at night, or hugging in the morning, or sitting close to each other on the couch. One night, Adam walked into the lounge while they were watching an anime. Phil had his arm snugly tucked around Dan’s shoulders, and when Dan saw Adam come in he almost jumped off the couch. But Phil kept his arm there, weight heavy against Dan’s shoulders, and gave Dan a reassuring gaze.

“Hey, Adam,” Phil said. Adam turned and smiled at them. They had the lights off in the room, so Adam probably couldn’t even see how they were positioned, Dan reminded himself. “Sorry to take over the room. But we’re just having a little date night.”

Dan felt like he might puke. He looked at Phil, even though he could only see the back of his neck, and stared hard, determined to make him feel his panic.

“Nice,” Adam said. “You both deserve it. You’ve spent a lot of all-nighters filming, yeah?”

“Yes,” Phil said. “Second season of Super Amazing Project is starting. Radio show will be starting. It’s all starting.” He turned and looked at Dan then, and he was smiling. “Big things.” (“Big things,” Phil had said to Dan a week before they moved to London. “There are big things waiting for us. You can’t be afraid of a little risk.”

“I think I know what risk is,” Dan had snapped back. “I dropped out of uni, after all.”

Phil had rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic.”)

Dan didn’t hide the panic on his face, and just stared back at Phil as he spoke. He knew Adam, he trusted Adam, he did. But he felt so exposed knowing that he was also hearing and seeing these things.

“I’m proud of you both,” Adam said. “No worries about taking over the TV tonight. It’d probably be good for me to go to bed at a decent time.” And then he walked away, like this conversation was normal, like this moment had been normal.

The thing was, Dan realized, that Phil had already been discussing their relationship with Adam for a while now. Not in a Look-At-Us-We’re-Dating, Shout-It-From-The-Rooftops kind of way, but in a casual way. And so this one moment, or seeing Dan and Phil act in couple-y ways, didn’t seem so huge to Adam. It only seemed huge to Dan because he had stopped letting this be a casual part of his life. But it could be.

Dan felt strange, now, realizing that Phil had discussed their relationship with so many other people. Adam, PJ, Bryony, Wirrow, his mum. But it was nice too. Because it was like they weren’t hiding, but weren’t openly sharing themselves with the world either. There was an in-between. There was the Dan and Phil that seemed open and raw and scary to Dan, and then there was just Dan and Phil, just life.

And Dan wanted to get back to just living life.

So one afternoon, after staying up all night filming videos, he passed up on napping with Phil and went round to Bryony’s place. He brought some PopTarts that he’d toasted before he’d left but were now cold, and her favorite coffee from Starbucks. When she opened the door her hair was soaking wet, like she’d just gotten out of the shower, and was holding her hands up like her nails were freshly painted.

“I hope you’re willing to feed those PopTarts to me,” she said.

“Why of course, milady,” Dan said, giving her a bow. Bryony let him in then, and he followed her to her kitchen, which smelled like coffee and browned butter.

“What did I do to deserve this visit?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to visit my friend.”

“Be honest. Were you out on your own and started to get stalked by young girls?”

“No,” Dan laughed. And then, more seriously, “That hasn’t really happened yet here. At least, not that badly. And whenever it has happened I’ve been with Phil.” He grimaced at the memories of being approached by Ikea and on the way to the BBC. That seemed so long ago now, even though it had only been a month or two.

“Well, it will get worse, don’t worry,” Bryony said, her voice serious but her eyes glittering. Dan sat down in a chair by the counter and fiddled with the crumpled PopTart wrapper in his jacket pocket. He didn’t know how he should feel about that.

“You want to say something,” Bryony said, sitting down in the chair next to his. “What do you want to say?”

“Did you and Wirrow ever talk about it?”

Bryony looked up at him and smiled. Then she pointed at the PopTart on the counter and then at her mouth. Dan broke off a small piece and fed it to her. “Talk about what?” she asked while chewing.

“You know, your relationship status. Or, like, how long you plan to be together.”

“Yeah, Wirrow got down on his knees and cried about how he loved me more than anything and couldn’t imagine life without me.”

“Really.”

“God, no. Can you imagine?” Bryony laughed and then gestured for another piece of PopTart. Dan stuck the tip of a bigger piece into her mouth, and then watched as she slowly maneuvered the whole thing into her mouth with her tongue. “You can be naïve sometimes, you know,” she said, although Dan could barely make it out through the PopTart chewing.

“I’m just feeling confused.”

Bryony swallowed and grinned. “Well, sometimes a boy will start to realize that he likes other boys. And that’s okay, because–”

“No, you jerk,” Dan laughed. “Confused about why things are so hard right now. With Phil. Because of course there’s the video leak, and the lack of privacy, and I always thought that was the main thing, and that once that was addressed everything would be better. But now I’m not so sure.”

“You’re still nervous?”

“Yeah. I’m feeling freaked out all the time. Even in the apartment, because Adam’s there right now. Even if we’re in my bedroom together, with the door locked. And it used to be like that, right after the video leak. But then it had seemed like a survival tactic. Now I’m wondering if it’s the new normal.”

“I don’t think it has to be,” Bryony said. “I do think this is about the video. But I also think these privacy invasions have made you start thinking about things that you were going to have think about eventually but were putting off. Everyone has to deal with the ‘How long are we going to be together?’ question eventually. It’s not like a cheesy rom-com where you both wake up one day and just _know_ without ever communicating with each other.”

Dan nodded, trying to take in Bryony’s words, trying to remember them and believe them. He must have spaced out a bit, because he noticed that she eventually reached across his chest and gingerly picked up the last piece of the PopTart between her thumb and pointer finger. “What else are you freaking out about?” she asked, her voice gentler now.

“Ah, maybe labels.”

“Yeah?”

“My mom wants to be involved with Phil and I’s relationship. I mean, she wants me to tell her things about how we’re doing and how I’m doing. And Phil also wants me to tell her things. But I don’t know what to tell her about what we are and what I am. I used to have this structured idea of what a relationship should be. The word relationship itself used to have a set definition for me. A romantic and sexual partnership between a man and a woman. And you were either in a relationship or you weren’t. There was no in-between, no gray areas, no uncertainty.”

Bryony was nodding along to everything Dan said, making him think he wasn’t sounding completely crazy. “Absolutely. And it’s absolute shit to realize, but life is full of uncertainty.” She smiled at him, and then gestured her head towards the untouched coffee cup. “Wanna give me a sip?”

“I saw you eat that last piece of PopTart on your own.”

“Only because I felt bad for you because you were looking so desolate. Plus, it’ll be entertaining. You need some care-free entertainment in your life.”

“No, I’m dead inside now. I only think depressing thoughts and tell self-depricating jokes.”

Bryony chuckled. “Okay, I’ve got something for you then. Tumblr’s got a new name for you. No Homo Howell.”

Dan grimaced. “Yeah, Phil told me.”

“Oh, good, so you boys are actually talking to each other now?”

“Shut up,” Dan said, pushing her lightly. But then he brought his knees up to his chest, looked at her guiltily, and said, “Yes.”

She nudged his shoulder with hers. “ _Good_. I was beginning to worry.”

“Yeah, I think this is the closest we’ve ever been to breaking up.”

“No, you dummy. About _Phil_. I mean, yes, you guys were looking a little fragile. But Phil has been a mess. His own fears combined with you clearly freaking out combined with his guilt about the fact that he knew he was screwing up. It’s kinda freaked me out. I’m so not used to seeing Phil shaken up.”

“That part was hard for me too.”

Bryony grinned, and then reached across the table to pick up her coffee cup with just two fingers. “See, Dan, the lesson to learn from all of this is that Phil’s an emotional loser, just like you.”


	4. October

Dan was owning Phil in a game of Scrabble when his mum called. His phone was lying on the arm of the sofa, which was closest to Phil, and so Phil was the one who picked it up and saw the name on the screen.

“It’s your mum,” he said, and then he set the phone down between them on the couch. Dan cleared his throat, hating how this felt like an awkward moment, despite all the talks they’d been having, despite the fact that things were mostly feeling so much better. Dan wanted to press pause on the world so that he could have some time to think about what to do here, but he knew that the phone wouldn’t keep ringing forever.

“Do you want to answer it?”

“What?” Phil slumped back into the couch. “Are you avoiding her again?”

“No, no. I mean, you should answer it. Because she might want to talk to you as well. Because I’m not hiding you from her. It’s meant to be a _gesture_ –” Dan’s voice was getting more and more high-pitched as he feared that he’d dug himself into a hole, and Phil laughed.

“Alright, alright,” he said, and then he answered the phone on what would have likely been its last ring. “Hi, this is Phil.” Suddenly, Dan thought that Phil looked rather nervous, which made his stomach feel soft and warm. “Oh, Dan is here, but he thought you might want to talk to me,” Phil said, his words a little stunted. He gave Dan a little glare. “I’m good, how are you?” Pause. “Oh, good.” Pause. “Yeah, we’re just playing a game of Scrabble. You know, a normal night in the Dan and Phil household.”

\- - -

(Dan had been on a train to Manchester when Phil called him. He jumped when his phone rang, as he’d had the volume turned all the way up, just in case he fell asleep and Phil tried to contact him. But the sound was so loud that multiple passengers sitting around him turned and glared. He gave them a weak smile, pulled his hat down further onto his head, and answered the call.

“Hi,” he whispered.

“Hi,” Phil whispered back. “Are you still on the train?”

“Yeah, there’s still two hours until I get to Manchester station.”

“No, I mean, you haven’t gotten off at a different stop? Realized this was crazy, jumped ship, abandoned this all together?”

“What?” Dan laughed. “Are you crazy? No, I would never do that.” He paused, took a deep breath, and then said, “I am so excited to see you.”

Phil’s voice got even softer. “Really?”

“Yes.”

He heard Phil let out a big breath, maybe from relief, although he didn’t want to get his hopes up too much. “I am so excited to see you too. I know we haven’t actually met before, technically, but I… Please don’t think I’m crazy for saying this, but I feel like you’re finally coming back to hang out with me after being away for a long time. Like, I feel like we’re being reunited.”

Dan laughed, “I know.” God, he was so screwed, he thought. Because he felt the same way too. He could already feel his heart clinging onto this, clinging onto Phil, like this was going to be his lifeboat. He could already tell he was never going to want to leave Manchester.)

\- - -

Dan woke up that morning with Phil lying beside him in bed, and he smiled. He felt embarrassed to think it, but it never got old. And there was still something intoxicating about waking up to find a boy in his bed, _his_ boy in his bed. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Phil’s shoulder, loving the splattering of freckles on his skin. He counted the ones that covered the round area that slid down into his arm: _one, two, three, four, five_ –  

“Are you trying to eat me?” Phil muttered.

“No, just loving you,” Dan said, surprising himself with how in love he sounded.

Phil re-adjusted his body so that he was lying flat on his back, and he pulled Dan to his chest. They laid like that for awhile, awake but gently stroking each other’s skin with their fingertips. Dan had almost drifted off to sleep again when Phil began to talk.

“You know, I never thought I’d leave Manchester. For so long, I thought I’d be there forever.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Phil moved his head to the side so that he could look at Dan. “You thought _I’d_ be in Manchester forever?”

“No, I mean that after I met you in Manchester, I thought, I want to stay here forever. And once I moved in with you I thought, wow, it really can’t get any better than this.”

Phil squeezed his wrist. “And?”

Dan smiled, and ran his fingers through Phil’s fringe. “It has.”

“Even with everything?”

“Even with everything. We’ve got an apartment. In the city. Screw everything else, that’s a dream right there.”

“We’ve got a rent we can barely afford,” Phil said, curling up closer to Dan’s body and caressing his sides. His voice got all low, and he whispered, “We spent all our money on Ikea bedsheets and video game merchandise.”

“Oh, shut up,” Dan laughed, although the sound also came out from low in his throat. Phil re-situated himself on top of Dan, and they kissed, gently, then with more intensity. Right when Dan was about to move his hand into Phil’s pajama pants, a loud siren went off, causing both of them to jump and Phil to tumble off Dan.

“Shit,” Phil muttered once the sound had stopped, and Dan laughed through his heavy breaths. “I’m not used to that yet.”

“Me either,” Dan said. “But London isn’t too bad.”

They still had sex, after they recovered from the shock of the siren. It was long and drawn-out and oh-so necessary. They were egged on by the day off that lay ahead of them and the fact that Adam had now moved into his own place. Dan felt that they could be as loud as he wanted, because even though rent and neighbors and a _whole world_ still existed outside his bedroom walls, Phil’s hands, smiles, and moans helped him forget about that for a while. It wasn’t the first time they’d had sex since moving to London, but in a way it felt like it, because it was the first time that they were both truly _there_ , vision hazy and skin sweaty and bodies beautiful.

After another hour in bed, they emerged to the kitchen. Dan’s stomach was feeling shockingly empty, so he went straight for the cabinets. He opened one to find some empty cereal boxes, and another to find some cans of fruit, and another to find bottles of Ribena. “Ugh, we’ve got no food,” he groaned. “Having Adam here really wiped us clean.”

“Want to go grocery shopping today?”

“Let’s just order delivery, like we did in Manchester.”

Phil walked over and placed his hands on Dan’s shoulders, pulling him in slightly towards his body. “Let’s go grocery shopping. Let’s go out, together. It’ll be fun.” Dan looked at Phil and studied his face. He was smiling at him in a strange way. It was the kind of smile Dan might give him if he had an idea for a new comedy sketch that required Phil to do something weird. Phil poked his cheek with his finger. “You can show me what kind of milk we get.”

Dan laughed. “I thought that was just a momentary brain fart?”

“It was. But it’s always good to have a refresher.”

Phil gave Dan a gentle nudge, and with a groan he went off to put on some real clothes. They left the apartment an hour later, after Phil had to search for his Oyster card and Dan tried on several different versions of the same black outfit. (“I feel like I’m having deja-vu,” Dan said as Phil came into his room and ripped back his bedsheets to see if the card had fallen out of his pocket.

“No, this is a unique event,” Phil said as he reached his hand between the mattress and the bed frame.

“Dan, I’ve lost my left shoe. Dan, I’ve lost my favorite pair of black jeans. Dan, I’ve lost my Animal Crossing cartridge,” Dan mimicked. “It’s like I’m your babysitter.”

“That could be a fantasy,” Phil said, darting over to kiss Dan on the cheek.

Dan stared at him for a moment, a black shirt in each hand and none on his body. He felt his skin redden. “And now I’m having an out-of-body experience,” he whispered.

“I can’t find my Oyster card,” Phil whispered into his ear. “I’ll have to buy a new one.” Then he leaned back, winked at Dan, and bounded out of the room. Dan stared at him, transfixed. They were the same them, the same Dan and Phil they had been from the first time they’d chatted online or hugged in real life or nervously kissed. But they were also an entirely new Dan and Phil, one that had moved into their second apartment together and had debt but also a kind of awesome job and people prying into their relationship because they actually had three years of history behind them. It was crazy, absolutely insane, and Dan both felt more scared and more excited than he had in a long time.)

Dan started to get very nervous once they got to the grocery store, because for some reason Phil was standing a lot closer to him than they normally did in public. He brushed his hand up against Dan’s when they were standing in front of the dairy section, and Dan almost jumped into the air.

“Are you trying to get us recognized?” Dan asked incredulously. “Don’t do that.”

Phil looked all around them, making sure they weren’t being watched, and then leaned in close to Dan’s ear. “You said you wanted me to not be weird around you in public, and I’m trying. But I think I’ve forgotten how we were normally. Before everything.”

“Phil, I’m fine. I don’t need some sort of grand gesture. This isn’t a movie.”

Phil raised his eyebrows and then scooted away from Dan’s side. “Sorry,” he said, looking a bit forlorn, but then he gave Dan a cheeky smile.

“Cheeseball,” Dan muttered.

“You know what just happened, right?” Phil asked.

“What? You were weird and I made fun of you?”

“No. You didn’t like something that I was doing, and instead of just going along with it you told me.”

Dan rolled his eyes and dug his elbow into Phil’s side. “Hey, you did that as well.”

“I know, I know,” Phil said as he winced. “But I couldn’t resist. Trying to make the situation lighter, I guess.”

“We’re past that now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We know that we need to be honest with each other about things we never thought we’d have to discuss. Like the fact that we’re having this conversation in broad daylight in a fucking grocery store, and yet I feel absolutely terrified of being spotted.”

Phil took a few steps back from Dan, but he gave him a smile that made him feel warm inside. He was going to have to learn to savor these little things, he supposed.

“When did we decide to become closeted?” he whispered to Phil as they stopped in the canned foods aisle.

Phil picked up a can of black beans, studied the label, and then said, “I don’t think we ever really decided.”

“It’s a necessity?”

“I think it’s a choice. A choice to give ourselves at least the option of having a normal relationship.”

Dan giggled. “What’s that.”

“Well, I don’t think normal gay couples worry about being outed to over a million people on the internet. So that’s a little different.” Phil gave him a strange look then, like he too now would rather they stopped having this conversation in a grocery store. “Let’s go look at some vegetables.”

Dan snorted. “ _Vegetables_?”

“Yeah. You know, those things that are actually green.”

They walked alongside each other in silence, and then Dan said, “I know it’s scary, but we’ve got to be able to do this, right? We can’t just never check in with each other, no matter how long we’ve been together.”

Phil turned his whole body towards him and smiled. “Right.” Then he looked away and pointed at a cabbage. “That thing is huge! It looks like a butt cheek.”

Dan smiled. They played that game for the rest of their time in the grocery store, making crude jokes about misshapen vegetables and silly brand names. Eventually Phil looked down at their cart and grimaced. “Shit, I wasn’t paying attention. We’re going to have to put some of this back. This is going to go over our grocery budget for the week.”

“It’s okay,” Dan said, picking up some easy-bake pizzas to return to the freezer section. “Let’s splurge, just this one trip. We deserve it.”

Phil grinned, “We’re going to regret this decision next week.”

Dan stuck his tongue out at him, and it was almost like they were in Manchester, fighting over how much they spent on food and the size of their cereal boxes. _Almost_. Dan wouldn’t want it to feel completely the same, he decided. He liked the way that things were different now.

Phil eventually agreed that they could splurge. (“What the hell,” he said. “It’s all starting now, isn’t it?”) Ten minutes later, they stumbled out of the grocery store, each clasping two stuffed bags to their chests and laughing almost crazily about the fact that they were going to be getting an actual paycheck soon.

The sun was blinding. Dan blinked into it.


End file.
